Marching On
by Rusting Roses
Summary: There are defining moments in every person's life. Jim Kirk has three such moments. When things seem to spiral out of control on the planet Ophella B, however, no one knows how the story is going to end.
1. Prologue

Hello all! This is my second Star Trek story, and my first ever challenge for the Tarsus IV community…I won't tell you what the prompt is (I don't want to spoil the story!) but feel free to go look it up.

Before I begin, I want to give thanks to my beta, The Laughing Phoenix, for putting up with far too many late night Skype messages and for editing this monster of a story in under 48 hours. She's amazing, and words cannot express how grateful I am. Thanks also to hollow echoes, for encouraging me to do the challenge in the first place, even if it didn't exactly stay under our 10k limit.

The title of this song comes from the OneRepublic song "Marching On", and each chapter is named after a line in the song. Please go give it a listen, if you haven't heard it already. It's an excellent song that I think very neatly sums up the entirety of this story.

Lastly, I hope you enjoy this story!!

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**Prologue: And We'll Have the Scars to Prove It**

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_There are defining moments in every person's life. These are the moments that shape the person, the moments that reveal the true depths of morals and feelings and intelligence. These moments become the center of a person's sense of self, the center of their belief of where they fit in with the universe, shows them what they will and will not do when pushed to the edge. At times the moments are disquieting, when a person realizes something that they cannot stand to acknowledge about themselves and bury it as deep as they are able. Sometimes the moments are small, unnoticeable. They are decisions made without conscious thought, but send those who make the decisions down certain paths that cannot be changed, even if they aren't aware of the life-changing nature of their choice. Other times they are overwhelming, blazing points of thought and emotion that are so deeply ingrained into a person's psyche, a person's being that it becomes what a person _is_. These are the situations where the true measure of what a person is- who a person is- is tested without fail._

_It is here that people are broken more often than they are made whole._

_James Tiberius Kirk is made up of a lot of moments, like all people are. Those iridescent moments, however, the moments that sum up his being, the moments that define what lines he will cross, and what can be sacrificed…he has three of them._

_There is first the moment, which is the very first time that he understands, well and truly _understands_ that his father is dead. It's the day that his grandfather Tiberius dies, and he realizes that 'dead' is this horrible thing full of stillness and paleness and tears. It's black mourning and gravestones and shaking hands. It terrifies Jim on too many levels for him to comprehend for a long time. This is the very first time that he understands that he is the cause of his father's death even though he was just a small being just coming into this universe, naked and cold and crying and unaware. He was the reason that his father stayed to drive the ship on a collision course. They say he did it to save the other people too, of course, and it's true- but Jim knows that if it weren't for the fact that he, the squalling newborn, and she, the loving wife, had been present, things might not have turned out quite the same. He can't stop thinking about it, agonizing over moments that could have gone differently. He wants to know more, to reach the epiphany his father reached, to see things as his father, the one that put the empty hole in his heart that he can't even begin to describe, did, but Winona doesn't speak much of those days. It's a long time before he understands that even though it wasn't always easy to love him, to love the reason that her husband was killed, she _does_ love him, sweet and pure and hard- she just can't always show it, and that hurts him too. Even with that love, though, that knowledge of how he was born defines him in more ways than he dares to consider. Winona's love simply isn't enough. There isn't anyone whose love is enough. It's a small eternity before Jim realizes that sometimes, life must be set aside for other things, for greater things. Sometimes, life must be set aside for love._

_The third moment is what the Starfleet likes to call 'The Narada Incident'. Three words that make it seem so simple, so cut and dry. Those three words don't encompass Bones's face as he patches up person after person, doing the most good he can for the most people possible even after being awake for nearly forty eight hours straight. They don't touch that broken-lost-little-boy-hurt look on Spock's face with the realization that the one person he knew without fail loved him is gone. They can't comprehend Chekov's stuttering, painful admission that he lost Amanda, or Sulu's gasping breath as he is overcome with terror in a free fall that should have ended in death, or Uhura's choked tears that come later when she can no longer hold back the soul-numbing sadness at the loss of Vulcan. These are only a handful a moments from that fateful trip, a handful of the moments that stand out with agonizing clarity. Scotty's sound of pure horror that sends goosebumps down Jim's arms, Pike's broken form lying on nothing more than a steel plate, Gaila's green skin splattered with blood; these moments and more give him nightmares. With them, however, comes the realization that he is finally, _finally_, home. These are his people, his family- he finally gets it, gets why his father made the decisions he did, and realizes that he would do the same. It's a blinding moment, the realization that from this moment he is the ship's husband and the crewmembers his children, that they are irrevocably bound together because he cannot, not for a single moment, fail the people under his protection. They are _his _in ways he is just beginning to understand. Jim also realizes that he wouldn't have it any differently. It's a struggle sometimes, to manage it, but he keeps trying and he gets better every day._

_From the day his father died, he gains understanding as to why people choose to die. From the day he stood on the bridge as Captain of the Enterprise, he gains an understanding that there were people for whom he'd die. _

_But there is the second moment to be considered still, and this moment defines him as much as the others do._

_Tarsus IV._

_From Tarsus IV, he gains the understanding what he would do to keep people alive._

_That, perhaps, was the most dangerous understanding of all._

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TBC


	2. Chapter 1

Here is the second chapter! Hope you enjoy it!

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**Chapter 1: But With What We Have**

He'd learned to ignore a lot of the little things. Hunger pains, scratches, bruises, dizziness- none of it made that much of an impact anymore. When someone lived with them for a long enough span of time, they stopped noticing them properly when in any other situation the accumulated pain would have been enough to make them weep. The human body, the human mind can adjust to a lot of things, to terrible things, and even if the mind is broken, the body can't always get over that instinctual need to preserve itself. So sometimes, sure, he'd get so dizzy that he thought he was going to vomit, but when the choice was either lay down and let that bastard's men take him, or run and run and run, and make it back to the hideaway where the others were waiting, well, Jimmy Kirk knew damn well which one he was going to pick.

As he jogged around what he fondly called the elephant rock, he was glad that his trip was almost done. He hated leaving the others for long periods of time, and he'd been gone almost three days; half a day's worth of travel to and from the city, and another two doing what he had to in order to scrounge up any food what he could get his hands on. He'd gone out to get food not to save himself, but to save the others, to save his friends, the motley crew that had banded together from circumstance. He'd managed the food too, managed to get enough to last the nine of them three whole days, with careful rationing- two small loafs of bread, ten old carrots, six heads of broccoli and, with a sort of awe and pride that made a beatific smile cross the too weary face, two small ducks- well, they weren't exactly ducks, but they were aquatic birds, so Jimmy privately thought of them as ducks- that the snares had successfully trapped.

When Jimmy thought of Gail, the small, seven year old girl, the pride swelled to the point of bursting. She'd been a pale, wraith-like thing when they'd first found her on the outskirts of the city, broken and bleeding, thrown to the edges like so much trash, much the same way they'd found Harry a few weeks prior. There were other bodies too, but they were swollen, misshapen from the expanding gases in their body, slowly but surely decaying- the only thing that was left of the colonists that Kodos had ordered murdered in his name, the very same act that had given Kodos the name 'Executioner'. They'd come there hoping to find food, but the very ground itself was poisoned by the decomposing bodies, and they hadn't dared to pick anything up. The smell had been horrific, and both Harry and Big J had thrown up. Jim had barely held on, and him and Big J had sent the others back, unwilling to let the little ones see any more death or pain than was absolutely necessary. His heart beat painfully in his chest at the mere thought of that haunting scene.

They'd taken Gail in, of course. They'd rescued her from her fate and done what they could to nurse her back to health, but they weren't doctors, didn't know much more than the fact that cuts had to be cleaned or they would get infected. She'd spent too much time unconscious though, with nothing more than whispered words as the only sign that she even realized what had occurred, and now her body was nearly insubstantial from lack of nourishment. With the duck meat and some vegetables, they might be able to make some sort of weak broth to get her to drink. They'd tried giving her solid food, but she would just vomit it back up. Big J, the oldest kid of the bunch, got a pinched look around his eyes every time that happened, and Jimmy knew that it wasn't good. However, there wasn't much they could do. Big J was needed to keep the kids in line, keep them occupied and safe, while Jimmy made sure they were fed, making sure no one was following him to enforce the bastard's orders and kill everyone who'd spoken out against his outdated eugenics- even Jimmy, the one who'd once been Kodos's golden boy. It wasn't perfect, but it was what they had, and Jimmy was finally bringing back enough food to give them a fighting chance.

It made the abominable ache in his ass and the blood dripping down his leg worth it.

Jimmy was on the verge of whistling as he ducked around the last set of trees, through the narrow crack that led to the cave, and down the natural steps to were the others were waiting near the underground river that was their source of fresh water. He adjusted his pack, making the caw of a peacock to signal that it was Jimmy, back home and safe from the journey.

There was no answer for nearly fifteen seconds. Jimmy froze, heart suddenly thundering into overdrive, keeping his breath nearly silent as he moved forward on the balls of his feet, careful to avoid everything in his path that might cause a noise. Then he heard it, just barely: an owl's mournful hoot, echoing in the cave. He darted forward, ready to curse Big J out for giving him that near-heart attack, for making it seem like they weren't there. The first words were nearly out of his mouth as he turned the final corner, heavy scowl on his face, when he saw the others.

Karrin and O'las were huddled in the corner of the large open area where they lived, tears streaming down both their faces as they clutched at each other. It was impossible to tell where one ended and the other began. Savik was kicking the wall over and over again, even though Jimmy could see even from here that his foot was battered and dripping blood on the floor. Savik didn't seem to notice, however. Big J was crouched over the river, staring blankly at his reflection, eerily still. Teddy was next to Big J, awkwardly patting his arm and sucking his thumb the way he only did when he was terrified these days; normally he insisted that he was a big boy, that he was brave and that he didn't need his thumb any more, because he was five years old. Gabriel, glasses askew was lying near the entryway, shaking hands over his face. Lastly was Harry, whose long limbs had been folded up into some ridiculous tight contortion as his shoulders shook with sobs.

"Big J?" Jimmy whispered, but he was just stalling for time. There was only one reason for all the despair that was bottled up in the room and making Jimmy's stomach roll unpleasantly. He was acutely aware of how disheveled he looked, of the blood dripping down his leg, yet at the same time he was aware of them only distantly. Big J's eyes flickered, once, to what Jimmy had seen but hadn't wanted to accept.

Gail, too pale, deathly pale. Her chest no longer rose and fell in those strong, steady breaths that Jimmy had come to expect. All the food he'd carried in his hands dropped, and he followed it down, barely noticing the sharp crack of agony in his knees; how could he notice, when it was a pale imitation of the one in his heart? Jimmy started shaking uncontrollably, needing to get clean, needing to scrub his skin of the stain of his failure, because he hadn't been fast enough- hadn't been willing to go to those measures to get food just yet, but he'd been desperate and now it was all for nothing-

Jim Kirk, Captain of the Enterprise shot up from his bed, heaving breaths in great gasping sobs. His skin was soaked with fear sweat, his heart pounding like he'd just run ten miles, limbs trembling too badly for him to properly wipe away the sweat on his face. Panic and terror flared in his mind, hot and bright and for a few terrifying seconds he couldn't breathe at all. He was swamped by the feelings for a long moment before he could fight them down, struggling to regulate his breathing and his heart, taking in slow, deep breaths to prevent himself from hyperventilating. Every time he closed his eyes, even to blink, the dream in all its horror was painted across his lids in brilliant shades, and his breath started to quaver dangerously.

Nearly twenty minutes passed before he considered himself even close to calm again, and he immediately got up, glancing at the chronometer as he passed. He grimaced. It was 02:47, ship standard time, and he'd only managed to get about three hours of sleep. Running a hand through his sweaty hair, Jim stood, stripping the sheets of his bed and tossing them down the laundry chute. His boxers followed them, and he made his way into the Captain's bathroom, desperate for a water shower to soothe out some of the tension that had knotted his muscles, to rinse away the bad dreams.

As the water washed over him, Jim closed his eyes, sighing deeply and trying to view the event with a clinical eye. Considering his life, he didn't get nightmares nearly as often as he'd thought he would, but when he did, they were always too vivid, too entrancing, forcing him to relive some of the worst experiences of his childhood as well as some of the more horrific moments of his captainship on the Enterprise. Tonight's dream, like many of the others, had contained a small variance that hadn't happened in reality, for which Jim was grateful. He could remember that day perfectly clear, remember the shame that had warred with joy- selling his body for food hadn't exactly been the height of his experiences, but it had saved them, had helped them get food. Gail hadn't died that night, thank goodness. She hadn't died at all, in fact, and the food that Jim had brought back that night was probably the reason that she'd survived, since the broth they'd made was the first thing she'd been able to keep down for nearly a week. Despite those small victories, however, Jim didn't like to talk about what he'd done, in those days, beyond to say that they were necessary.

Jim turned his face into the spray of water as if it could cleanse his thoughts, shuddering slightly as his own morbidity and depression. He wouldn't be going back to sleep that night, at the very least, and probably not the next night either. Jim's nightmares came fairly few and far between considering what his life had been filled with, but every time he had them, he was a wreck for the better part of the following three days. He scrubbed at his body with soap, wiping away the remnants of sweat and the phantom hands that had been touching him. He stayed under the hot spray as long as he could, needing desperately to feel clean. He'd had problems when he was younger, occasionally, with scrubbing his skin to the point that it was bleeding, but Jim was too conscientious these days to do it purposefully or by accident. He sighed, finally, coming to the conclusion that the shower wasn't being exceedingly helpful. He shut off the water, and as he stepped out of the shower, dripping water on the floor, he considered what he should do next.

He considered sending Gail a vid. By doing that, he could face his nightmare directly, for seeing her face and listening to her speak would do a great deal to alleviate his fears, but his nerves were scraped raw at the moment. He couldn't quite manage the desire to confront what she represented quite yet, not with her dead body still in his mind's eye. He congratulated himself for considering the idea at all, however. For a number of years it had been too much, to interact with the people who had been with him those months on Tarsus IV. When they'd finally been rescued, he'd simply shut himself off from the others, driven them away, trying desperately to be whole, to stop thinking of what he'd seen, what he'd done.

He'd been too damaged though, between his father and Tarsus IV, to ever be normal. It drove him to drinking, to fighting, to sex, anything that would help block out the memories, the phantom hands. He needed something, anything to push away the fact that he'd been useless twice over, despite the protests of the people around him. Once as a baby, getting his father killed, or so he'd thought at the time, and once when he was thirteen and on Tarsus IV, doing what he had to do to keep his friends safe, even if it meant exchanging sex, amongst other things, for food. He smiled a little grimly, then shook his head to clear it. It would do no good to dwell on it now. He would send Gail a vid later, when the wounds weren't quite so fresh, the memories less vivid. He did spare a thought for her, wondering briefly how she was doing- like Jim, like the rest of them, she too bore marks of her time on Tarsus. Harry hoarded food, for example, and Karrin still struggled with anorexia. Jim himself could no longer properly interpret hunger signals from his body, having spent the better part of five months ignoring them constantly, and none of the work the doctors had done to restore the response pathways had worked. He literally had to remind himself to eat, something that always caused a low burn of shame to ache in his gut.

Jim felt the tension creeping back into his body at the thought, locking his muscles painfully. It was just another of the many failures that Tarsus IV represented for him, and something bitter and dark swelled in his heart as he resisted the urge to pick something up for the sole purposes of shattering it against the far wall. Instead, he hissed a breath, purposefully trying to turn his thoughts to something more joyous. He wiped at his face with his towel, trying to rub away the telltale burning in his eyes.

He couldn't help but wonder what everyone would say, if they knew that on top of being the famous child born during the Kelvin disaster, he had been on Tarsus IV. Winona had used all of her political power from her husband's death to keep Jim's name out of the press, something for which he was eternally grateful. For their part, Starfleet wasn't too keen on letting his name reach the press either; it was bad enough that Kodos had essentially committed genocide. Starfleet didn't want the knowledge that the son of the Kelvin disaster's hero had done things grown men would quail at to feed his friends to reach the public.

Starfleet would have been crucified.

For his part, Jim didn't care about the politics of the disaster. He just wanted everyone to leave him the fuck alone. Though the rescue ship that had been sent had tried to help him, Jim just felt like an overanalyzed experiment, and all he wanted was to rail against the doctors, nurses and therapists that had been assigned to his case. Jim had never voluntarily shared the details, until one after another had quit, feeling as though they couldn't get past the brick wall that Jim had erected around himself. With each new failure, the small little boy with blood dripping down his leg trembled and cried; the rest of Jim just smirked and made crass little comments, viciously glad that they were giving up, because everyone had given up. It was a sick, hollow victory, because he wasn't worth the time, wasn't worth the energy. It was easier just to pass his case file along to someone else, and someone else, and someone else until finally Winona had withdrawn him completely from hospital care, and did her best to take care of him until he'd left at sixteen to roam anywhere and everywhere he could.

Then Bones had come along.

Of his friends, only Bones knew the details. For the first couple of months at the Academy, they had been drinking buddies for the most part, not true friends, for all that they had been assigned a room together because they had both signed their contracts late. Bones was busy with getting his xenobiology certification and trying to ward off requests to teach this or that class in addition to his rounds at Starfleet Medical. Jim was busy too, adjusting to seven classes when the normal cadet had five. He'd sworn though, sworn to Captain Pike that he'd be out of the fucking Academy and into the stars in three years, and he would be damned if he would fail at something else. So they existed in a tenuous sort of acknowledgement, a cautious relationship that hovered somewhere between drinking buddies and enemies, depending on whether Jim had brought back another sentient being to fuck while Bones was trying to study or not.

Such was the limbo until, of course, the day that Jim had come in late one night, bruised and bleeding from yet another fight; Bones had dragged him to the Academy hospital to treat him on the sly in an act of kindness and sorrow, since if Jim had another fight on record it was entirely possible he'd be kicked out of Starfleet, no matter how much of a genius he was or the fact that his father was the hero of the Kelvin disaster. Jim still wondered what had possessed Bones to do it, what had given him such sympathy. Bones was risking his position at Starfleet too, treating Jim's wounds without reporting them and without explicit permission. Within all of Jim's rambling drunken musing on Bones apparent development of kindness, something that Jim hadn't believed possible, though, the fact that Bones was going to treat him and the fact that Bones would therefore have access to his medical file never connected. It hadn't surfaced in his mind even as he stared at Bones, wondering dimly if his mother had been right, and if you scowled too often your face actually got stuck like that.

Bones had been perusing it carefully, checking for allergies, for previous medications and its effects and the like to ensure that he didn't accidentally kill his patient while Jim had been rotating his bruised shoulder, trying to figure out if the bone itself was bruised or not when he'd seen Bones's face drain of all color. In his alcohol-drenched mind, it had taken a perilously long second for that fact to connect with what he knew was on the file- everything he'd done on Tarsus, all of the medical and psychological evaluations, diagnosis, the medicine he'd been on, everything in black letters on a white screen. Even then, Jim wasn't in sufficient control of his facilities to make an escape, though it sobered him up quite abruptly as he inhaled sharply. He was out of his chair, making fake apologies and excuses and nearly to the door before Bones came over and grabbed his ear in a vicious twist that had him shouting in pain. Bone's face was a careful mask as he dragged Jim back into the room, and cleaned all his injuries without saying so much as a word. Nevertheless, whenever Jim made a bid for escape, Bones had no compunction about landing a hard jab to a nerve cluster or hitting him particularly emphatically with a hypospray to keep him in place.

Jim, for his part, had no idea how to respond to Bones's taciturn silence, but understood that at the very least, he wasn't getting out of Bones's grasp without being treated. He knew that if need be, Bones would sedate him, and he didn't want it to come to that, didn't want to feel less in of control of the situation than he already did. Bones kept throwing him off balance with his silence, however. He was used to people trying to make him talk about it, to make him understand that it wasn't his fault, that he should be proud of helping the others to survive, but every word was just a hot brand on skin. How could they possibly understand what kind of hell Tarsus IV had been for those who had lived through it? He tried to escape only once more, as they left the Academy hospital and headed back to the room. He'd tried to run off, but hadn't been expected Bones to be on him in a flash, kicking his feet out from under him and leaning his full body weight on the arms that Bones had twisted up behind Jim.

"Doctors these days are trained in basic hand to hand combat to prevent things like drug addicts forcibly stealing what they want. I taught the class for four years before I ever came to Starfleet. Do not mess with me, or I will drag your sorry ass to medical and _make_ you listen. Am I clear?"

Jim had sagged beneath Bones, giving in. Bones had given him a single look that simply _dared_ Jim to pull something. Jim was cowed by the behavior- no one had reacted like this, no one had bothered to see what it was that _he_ wanted, no one had done anything but pity him again and again and _again_. So when Bones dragged him back to the room that they shared, forced him to sit down and handed him a whisky, Jim wasn't quite sure what to expect. Drinking as therapy? He'd been there, done that, and there were bars all across Iowa that had his vomit in the corner to prove it as truth. He'd taken the glass with a laugh, smirking, and asked Bones in the coolest voice he muster, "Is that the best you've got?"

Bones just tossed back his drink, hissing through his teeth a little as it burned going down and stared up at the ceiling and just…talked.

And talked.

And _talked_.

He talked about every aspect of his daughter, Joanna, whose existence was previously a mystery. He talked about his ex-wife, how he met her, why he'd married her and how it had all fallen apart. He talked about his mother. He talked about the grandparents who hated him, and the ones that had gone to their graves. He talked about his younger sister, his elder brother.

He talked about his father.

He talked about…about killing his father.

Through it all Jim sat and stared at Bones, heart aching anxiously for the stalwart man before him, wondering at his courage to share parts of himself that Jim suspected that no one else knew. Not his family, nor his friends. Jim listened as hard as he could as the words poured out of Bones, committing each word, each pause, each breath to memory so as to recall even the most minute changes in expression. It made Jim ashamed that he could not do what this man was doing, in the bright halogen lights that threw Bones's lined face into sharp relief. He had never bared himself to another, never had that courage, yet nor could he manage to hate Bones for what he was doing now. This was a gift that Bones was giving him, a gift given freely and without expectation of return. Bones was giving him this to make him understand that he wasn't alone, that he could trust Bones and Bones clearly trusted him. With this knowledge, Jim could take away Bones's medical license, prevent him from seeing Joanna, kick him out of Starfleet, the last place Bones had to call his own. Instead, Jim listened and believed, just a little, in God, because someone was sure as hell looking out for him.

And if Jim cried a little as Bones smoothed his hair away from his face that night before tucking the covers around him like he once imagined his father would, well, Bones was a man. He wouldn't mention it.

The next morning, Bones didn't press any more than he had the night previous, just jabbed a hypospray into Jim's neck like every other time to combat the dehydration, and went on his merry way. Jim felt more refreshed than he had in a long time, as though he'd finally gotten some real rest, as though it had been him that poured his soul out to Bones instead of the other way around. Though maybe he had, Jim mused. If he'd really wanted to, he probably could have fought Bones off the night before. He hadn't been that drunk, and Jim knew how to throw a punch that would hurt enough to let him get away; and when Bones had started talking, Jim probably could have left then too.

Yet he hadn't.

That single night had bound them irrevocably together; sure, he'd thought Bones was interesting before, but that night had found Jim the first real friend he'd had his entire life. He began revealing the details little by little, a comment slipped in here, a response he normally wouldn't have made there. He let Bones catch him when he set his watch to remind him to eat. When Starfleet told him at the beginning of his second year that he couldn't get into command track unless he was willing to attend regular therapy to resolve 'outstanding issues', Jim recruited Bones to act as his psychologist, despite the fact that it wasn't even his specialty.

Slowly but surely, Jim began to feel worth something again.

In return, Jim made sure that Bones had plenty to drink on the anniversary of his marriage, divorce, Joanna's birthday, and most weekends. He stopped bringing people back to the room, no matter what they said they could do with their tongue (though he found other venues to explore those options- Jim was Bones's friend, not a saint). He helped Bones study for exams, made sure he didn't wallow in the single life forever, and generally tried to be as good a friend for Bones as Bones was for him.

Jim shook his head a second time, fighting his way clear of the memories again as he pulled on a pair of his most comfortable jeans and a sweatshirt. He wouldn't be due on the bridge for alpha shift until 08:30, and he wasn't about to stay alone in his room for the next five hours. He ran a hand through his hair, knowing that he probably looked exhausted and bit his lip. Bones was on beta shift, that he knew, and he usually was up until some obscene hour in his lab anyways, working on some project or another, for all he lectured Jim about taking time off. Jim hadn't been really interested in science, not the way Bones or Spock were, but a trained monkey could make media for cultures, run sequences or any of the thousand or so other tasks that were generally considered 'grunt work', and he'd helped Bones in the labs before. He could go down and see if Bones was in his lab, and if so, he could help. It would be nice, too. Jim simply had more of a knack for engineering, for tactical, for piloting and navigational work, and medicine required a different set of mental muscles that he rarely bothered to stretch. Plus, if he lost himself in grunt work for a couple of hours, it would keep his mind off things until he could talk to Bones without loosing his mind, his temper, or both.

There was no such thing as true "night" on a Starship. The three shifts a day, with a weirdly staggered omega shift somehow managed to keep everyone on a six days on, three days off system- more or less- meant that it was always the middle of the day for someone, and it showed. It was mid morning for those on gamma shift, and Jim was treated to friendly salutes as he made his way down to medical, chatter on all sides. Sure enough, Bones was still in the middle of running some cell cultures when Jim finally poked his head into the first of the ten labs attached directly to med bay.

"Knock knock!" Jim called.

Bones looked up, scowl taking over his face when he realized who it was. There were few people who entered any room with so cavalier an opening statement as 'knock knock'. "Shouldn't you be asleep? No, wait, forget I asked. Only _sane_ people would be asleep in the middle of their night, and I learned four years ago that you'd give a dodo bird a run for its money in the stupidity department." He turned back to his microscope after shooting a glare at Jim, and unwilling to squander attention on Jim when he had whatever it was under his microscope to study.

It was to Medical's credit that they barely stirred at the CMO's harassment of their Captain. Perhaps they were used to it, after a year of the pair bickering almost constantly. Jim just leaned against the wall, waiting for Bones to look up again. Bones had a sixth sense, Jim sometimes thought, when it came to knowing when Jim was about and how he was feeling. Usually Jim had something specific to say when he visited Bones while the man was working, because even he wasn't fool enough to bring on himself the rage that would result. So when Jim didn't speak up, didn't launch into some story or command, Bones looked up and studied Jim for a moment before that acerbic exterior softened for the merest instant. Bones had been there, through the nightmares and the drunken babbling and the tears. He'd see the signs- Jim trusted him to see the signs when no one else could.

There was a reason that Bones was his best friend.

"If you're going to stand there," Bones all but growled, right on cue. "Then come and lend a hand, you lazy ass."

On another ship, perhaps, or in another lab, the medical personnel might have taken offense at their Captain getting so involved in the day to day affairs. On those other ships and labs, however, there were probably people being paid just to do grunt work and who didn't have seven other projects that they were trying to balance at once. On the Enterprise, however, overachievement was less a part of the type A personality, and more of a way of life. They were more than willing to hand off the running of blots and sequencing and the use of optical tweezers to examine DNA constructs and other mind-numbing steps to someone who was willing to do them, so they could return to creating a vaccine to the Orion reglund, or whatever it was that medical personnel did in their free time. Jim had never been too clear on the details, exactly, and if Bones droned on for more than twenty minutes about his side projects, Jim tended to go cross eyed and started to have his brain leak out his ears.

So he spent five hours first refining the algorithm that matched genetic sequences to genetic diseases by gene, and then sifting through the results, looking for anomalies that might cause future problems. It was the lowest of low grunt work, and the medical personnel hated being forced to do it. The work required little more than a single functioning brain cell, but it was necessary to run the updated genetic sequence of every person on the Enterprise through the algorithm to ensure that they hadn't been exposed to anything that was slowly turning their DNA into mush.

Or something like that.

At the end of the fifth hour, just when Jim was rubbing at his bleary eyes, a cup of coffee was placed by his elbow. The room was empty, as it often was in that strange half-hour where the current shift was wrapping things up and the new shift was just coming on. Bones gazed at Jim, eyes sad. Then he sighed, leaned against the lab table and said. "You, me, in ten hours for a glass of proper bourbon." Then he left.

Jim's mouth curled into a small, wry smile. Typical Bones behavior. He took the cup back with him to his room, where he drained the cup and got dressed in his Captain's uniform, smoothing down the gold cloth and marveling a little that he was even able to wear it at all. He shot Gail a quick vid, asking for an update on how she was, sent it off and was strolling on the bridge at exactly 08:30, sipping an extra cup of coffee.

* * *

TBC


	3. Chapter 2

Here is chapter 3!

* * *

**For All the Plans that We've Made**

As he walked onto the bridge, he took a moment to appreciate his crew, hovering for a breath by the turbolift. Bones was his best friend, his brother, but these people were his family too, as silly as it sometimes sounded in his head. Chekov was the quintessential little brother, full of interest in everything around him and so eager to do everything his elders could do. Jim sometimes thought if he rubbed off just a little on Chekov, he'd have achieved the greatest honor possible as a starship captain. There was Sulu, the slow and steady cousin that always won the race; his calm was not the tightly controlled ease of his First Officer, but a more relaxed version that tempted Jim to say "Surf's up, dude," in a Californian accent just to see what would happen. There was wild and crazy Scotty, the uncle who showed up solely to throw everything into chaos, or so it seemed at times. Jim would trust no one else in his engine room, knowing that for Scotty, the Enterprise and its mostly human cargo were irreplaceable and he put every effort towards ensuring that the Enterprise did what it needed to in order to keep its people alive, coaxing out things that Jim was pretty sure broke at least some of the laws of physics. Uhura was a strange mix between a mother and sister; she was the one that always had the best advice for people, considering she could understand people almost as well as she understood over forty languages. Jim didn't know what he'd do without her fierce intelligence and fire, so often the voice of wisdom amongst so many men.

Then there was Spock.

When he'd experienced the mind meld on Delta Vega, he hadn't expected the undercurrent of trust, of joy, of something deep and warm and _pure_. It was more than friendship, more than brotherhood, all encompassing and absolute. It was the only thing that had tempered the barrage of self-loathing and guilt, the sheer agony of what Nero had put the elder Spock through. _That_ was another source of fodder for his nightmares. However, those deep and absolute feelings had made Jim believe what the half-Vulcan's words hadn't- "I have been, and always shall be, your friend." It had sounded so simple, so easy that Jim hadn't believed him, especially considering who he claimed to be. When taken with those feeling underneath, the feeling that he could become something more, something better than the half-broken child he'd been at the time, it was exhilarating. The only drawback was that the half-Vulcan who had been involved in the mind meld was not the one that he worked with every day, and the experiences Spock- his Spock, his current First Officer- had different than that of his elder counterpart, plain and simple.

Often, Jim had no idea what he was supposed to think. The starting point had been easy enough- Jim had explained his actions, Spock had explained his. They'd sat down like rational people and worked for nearly a week straight to attempt to understand the convoluted and meandering path that they'd somehow taken to get to where they were. It hadn't been easy, and more than once Jim wanted to storm out in frustration, in rage, at the inability to get through to Spock, and Jim was sure that Spock had felt the same, even if he hadn't shown it. That week had been filled with hesitant apologizes and painfully awkward silences that had Jim wondering if it was really worth it, worth it to achieve even a pale imitation of the blaze he'd seen in the other's mind.

Then they'd mostly gone their separate ways at the Academy, as everyone struggled to rebuild and repair the damage, as they finished up classes, as they attempted to explain their actions to Starfleet and finally, _finally_ graduated. Jim had hardly a moment to spare for anything, let alone an uninterrupted conversation. He'd thought they made progress however, enough that he'd fought, tooth and nail for Spock as his First Officer, when he was finally, unbelievably and against all odds made the captain of the Constitution Class starship Enterprise, NCC-1701, wanting someone who could banter with him, who could temper his emotion, who could be his other half on the bridge. And sure, if they somehow managed to form a connection like he'd seen in the elder Spock's mind, well, all the more power to them, even if it didn't quite go into the…physical relationship their counterpoints had had. Jim knew that enough things had changed between their worlds not to particularly desire that development at this point, feeling almost neutral about the idea of being with Spock. As it was, enough things had changed between the two universes that he didn't even know if it was in the cards, and he sure as hell wasn't going to waste time worrying about it- he had plenty of other things to worry about as it was. Having Spock as a friend would be enough. Jim shook his head at little the thought and tried to regain control of his wandering thoughts, gazing around at his ship, taking in the sleek lines of her bridge.

The _Enterprise_.

The taste of absolute joy that had come with the knowledge that he would some day soon be able to call the Enterprise his own was enough for him to begin trying to convince Spock that going back to Vulcan wouldn't do the most good. He needed to be out there traveling in the darkness between planets and stars, making discoveries, changing the world, not dwelling on past mistakes and suffering as the strange mix of outcast and hero that the other Vulcans seemed to view him as. Spock had resisted, to the very end- Jim, to this day, had no idea as to why the half-Vulcan had agreed to be a member of his crew. He'd thought at first that the Admiralty had made him come aboard, a way of keeping tabs of their youngest and in a way, least qualified, captain, for all that he'd saved the world and avenged his father in the process. Though he'd discarded that notion, he'd not yet figured out the true reason for his return, yet another mystery concerning Spock's behavior.

"Captain?" the object of his musing said, startling Jim.

"Oh! Sorry. Just a little lost in thought there."

"I can understand how taxing it must be, when you experience thought so rarely," Uhura quipped right on cue.

"Such kind words!" Jim retorted with a grin. "My heart, be still! I don't know how I shall ever get on without your sweet and charming words getting me through the day!" Jim continued sardonically.

Uhura opened her mouth to give a witty rejoinder, taking enjoyment from their false mockery and flirtations, but was stopped by another voice. "Captain," Spock said a second time in order to regain his attention.

"Yes, Mr. Spock?" Jim said, turning fully to face his first officer. "What can I do you for?"

Spock only looked confused at the phrase for the barest hint of a second, but it made a smile blossom on Jim's face. Spock raised an eyebrow in response, and then said, voice calm and even, "We just received the go ahead from Starfleet to investigate Ophella-b."

Jim whistled. "Great!" he exclaimed. "Starfleet just made a lot of our astrophysicists exceedingly happy! Did you alert Ambassador Sarek to the slight change in our plans?"

Spock inclined his head. "I informed him that we will be deviating from our schedule for two days in order to examine the phenomenon. Since he is not expected to return to his ambassadorial duties for another three weeks, we will have plenty of time to make the appropriate observations and studies before we need to return to Earth."

New Vulcan, while not exactly in the optimum state of affairs, was certainly developing as quickly and as well as anyone could have hoped, and it was generally agreed by all concerned that the Vulcans needed to re-establish their ties with the Federation, as much as to gain support as to work against attacks of similar scale that might happen in the future. As a result, the Enterprise had been asked to bring the Vulcan Ambassador back to Earth, a show of solidarity, since the Enterprise was the very ship that had saved the Vulcan Elders over an Earth year ago, though not quite a Vulcan year. There had been some debate as to whether it should be Sarek who fulfilled the duties of Vulcan Ambassador, considering that he was one of the Elders and in and of himself a wealth of cultural knowledge. However, it had been decided by the Vulcan High Council that his work as Ambassador was irreplaceable, especially considering he would be able to record and sent to New Vulcan any and all relevant information. It wasn't a perfect solution, not by a long shot, but it was the one that they had for now.

They didn't have much of a choice, either; there weren't a lot of Vulcans willing to step into the role either, as all of the 15,627 Vulcans that had survived were occupied with some role to help their people, from building schools to growing food to organizing the volunteers that had been helping. Surprisingly, the events of the Narada Incident had also resulted in the largest influx of Vulcan applicants to Starfleet in the last three centuries. It seemed that the Vulcan people, instead of continuing the isolationist mindset that had dominated for the past several hundred years, desired to go out, to see the universe that had nearly been taken from them, to help others as they themselves had been helped, to find a way to protect what they'd fought so hard to earn. Of course, there were some who desired that they close themselves off entirely, return to the old ways, but the younger generation were unwilling to accept that, growing past the boundaries being set by them, merging their culture into new shapes out of necessity and changing themselves as a result.

Jim's mind boggled at the struggle that lay ahead of them, the scope of what had been accomplished and what still had to be accomplished, the ways things had changed and stayed the same. The Vulcan people were changing in ways they couldn't yet realize, altered by their experience. They were being forced to make concessions when they normally wouldn't, caught between what was old and safe and what was new and potentially dangerous. Jim's mind wasn't just boggled- it couldn't even wrap itself around what the Vulcans must be feeling, must be going through. He saw it echoed occasionally in the clenching of Spock's jaw, in the ways his eyes would sometimes go dark. What he received from the elder Spock in the meld he could only view as an imitation, a mockery. He might have experienced it, felt the emotions but it was a brief thing; Jim didn't have the people, the experiences, the minute details that would have made it seem real. It was…Jim didn't know what it was, so he tried to deal with it as best as he could.

Jim put his thoughts of New Vulcan out of his head and nodded at Spock's words, seating himself in the Captain's chair, glad that his First Officer already passed the news of their slight delay onto his father. It would be one less thing to remember to do later. "Can you send a message to all relevant parties asking them to assemble for a meeting this afternoon…" Jim worried his lip, mentally arranging and rearranging his schedule, "at 15:45? I trust that you've sent the authorization of Starfleet's orders to my PADD so I can sign off on it?"

Spock raised an eyebrow, as if Jim shouldn't have even bothered to ask. Jim half-smiled and raised a hand to forestall any comment Spock could have made before saying, "Don't answer that. I'll sign off on it before the meeting and make sure it's send out with the daily communiqué." Even as he spoke, he pulled his PADD out of the pocket on the side of the captain's chair and began scrolling through the messages. Even though he'd left the bridge with only twenty or so files on his PADD, already he had over one hundred and fifty new messages, reports and the like waiting for him. "Chekov, can you start plotting a course to Ophella-b? Sulu, take us into warp two until the calculations are done, and then up it to warp four, and tell Mr. Scott about the change. Spock, when we get in range, make sure that all the scans are sent to me along with the compiled reports."

Everyone snapped to their work, calling out orders through the communication system of the Enterprise. When he got confirmations for all of his orders he perused his paperwork, signing off on the innumerous reports that seemed to be generated each day. He signed off report after report from the captain's chair, sending each finished report to Uhura's terminal to be compiled, encoded and sent through subspace to Starfleet. That only took him until midmorning, however, so he occupied his time by re-reading the application that the scientists had submitted to examine the Ophella-b system.

It was interesting stuff, Jim had to admit, from an astrophysics perspective. Ophella-b's main star was a blazing blue giant in the prime of its life. Unlike most other stars of that size and temperature, however, Ophella-b had a full planetary system with seven planets. The basic readings on their way past the system the first time had indicated that the first four planets were mostly like Mercury, in the Earth's solar system, melted to slag due to their close proximity to the intense sun, without even a semblance of an atmosphere and poisoned by radiation from the star. The next was a gas giant, a gorgeous pale violet that came from an unusually high amount of potassium, rubidium and cesium present in its atmosphere. Like the inner planets, it was equally bereft of anything resembling life.

The last two, however, were enormously interesting. The furthest out, the seventh planet, had geysers spewing some sort of water-but-not-really-water molecule that his chemists, both organic and inorganic, were slavering over; they wanted to collect some samples to study. It was the sixth planet, however, that had captured the attention of not only the astrophysicists, but the biologists, chemists, geologists and environmentalists. It was situated in what the scientists still liked to call the 'safety zone', the distance between the planet and star that resulted in a hospitable environment. For a little G0 like the Sun, an approximate distance of one hundred and fifty million kilometers produced a habitable planet. For Vulcan, it had been somewhere around ninety million kilometers, due to the fact that their star was a white dwarf.

For the blue giant Ophella-b, it's habitable range was something that was practically obscene, in Jim's opinion- the sixth planet was three hundred and twenty million kilometers from the sun, and that was still towards the inner edge of the habitable zone. Other basic readings- the presence of an atmosphere, water, and what seemed to be complex organic molecules- indicated that there was a possibility of life being found on Ophella-b VI. The scientists were dying to check it out, since so few blue giants managed to keep a proper planetary system. Usually, the blue giant vaporized any stray bits of rock or planets, assuming that they managed to escape in the first place during the gravitational pull when the star was forming. If they managed to find life here, in the A3 type star of Ophella-b, it would help redefine the parameters of where life could be found, and would very likely redefine what the Federation viewed as life in general.

It was the sort of opportunity that the Federation wasn't willing to give up, even if it meant that Ambassador Sarek returned to Earth from New Vulcan a day or two later than expected.

Jim's meeting went as smoothly as such things ever did; the issue of Ophella-b VII was easily resolved; Enterprise would do a close flyby, sending out a probe to collect samples and data before returning to the Enterprise. Ophella-b VI was less clear cut. It was agreed by all parties that the first step should be a flyby, to more closely examine the planet and get more accurate readings about the atmospheric makeup, the presence of water, soil composition and the like, as well as give them a better idea as to the chances that life had flourished on the planet; a flyby would also allow for a visual confirmation that there was land to beam down on, that it wasn't a planet solely of oceans.

From there the issue of what to do was less clear cut. Unfortunately, the star's radiation prevented the use of the truly specific scans for evidence of life, their readings hopelessly jumbled and thus useless for making a concrete determination. They would have to examine the planet with a fine toothed comb with various types of planet-bound scans to say for certain that there was no life; not only did Jim have to get Ambassador Sarek back to Earth, but there was no surefire way to know that the natives were warp capable from outer space, assuming there were natives there. Satellites and space stations were usually a good indicator that there was at least some sort of life, but Jim had seen civilizations that had such streamlined technology that such things as satellites weren't needed and thus removed from the outer atmosphere as the natives felt it they cluttered space in a wholly unnecessary way. Likewise, he'd also seen civilizations that had stalled upon reaching space, that had never truly been interested in developing the capacity to see what was out there. Whatever the reason, there were no satellites or space stations orbiting the planet- nothing but a small moon about fifteen kilometers across, and thus there was no way to say for certain if there was sentient life present or not without beaming down and running a set of fairly lengthy and involved tests. Jim couldn't afford to spend that much time exploring the planet, not when he had other duties to attend to.

However, they had been trained for this, trained for first encounters of all sorts, and Jim could see no real reason not to explore the planet's surface for at least a short amount of time if it was deemed safe. If they found sentient life, so be it. If not, they could send their findings off the Starfleet and let them send a ship to the planet to do a better search than the Enterprise was able to at the moment. Thus, at the end of the day and after all the deliberations, it was concluded that when they reached the planet in two day's time, a team would be sent down, including Spock, Jim, Lieutenants Littlefoot and Babson from the chemistry department, as well as Lieutenant Commander Ita'ki from biology and Ensign Jacobson from geology. From security there was Ensign Giotto and Lieutenants Olin, Imari and Kktch. Medical had been alerted as to the details of the impending mission, for which Bones only had a tetchy, "Well, don't die" to send in reply. Jim ignored his friend's response, because Bones tended to blow things out of proportion, such as the amount of time he'd spent in medical over the last year.

They reached the system within forty seven hours, ship standard time, and immediately banked towards the outer edges in order to collect the first set of samples. By the time the samples had been collected, it was the middle of beta shift, and Jim made plans for him and his team to head down at the start of alpha shift, giving everyone on the party plenty of time to prepare and rest before heading down to the planet.

The first glimpse of the planet was promising; the planet definitely had a crust, with both land and water present, but unlike the green of earth, this planet was a study in contrast. The oceans were blue, as expected from bodies of liquid composed of mostly water, but the land was covered in shades of orange, red, and yellow, as if there was a forest across the entire planet, and that forest was currently experiencing the height of fall. It was beautiful, to be honest, in all its conflicting glory, and Jim found himself excited to go down and see what the cause of the color was.

Scotty was waiting for them in the transporter room, grinning broadly. "Capt'n!" he called, face brightening even more. "I see you've got everyone and a monkey's uncle ready for today!"

Jim grinned back at him easily even as he and the others made for their positions on the transporter pad. "It only seems that way," he assured the Scotsman. "Just taking precautionary measures. The star's radiation is messing a little with our life-sign scans, so we can't tell for sure if there's life. If there is, well, it's always better to err on the side of caution, right? We're just going to beam down for a brief look around, so we can send some information back to Starfleet when they're able to send a party to take a closer look. Even if there's just plant life and basic microbes, it'll still be the first time such a thing has been found around a blue giant," Jim finished, a little bounce in his step.

"Exciting business, then. Off ya go," Scotty announced happily. He fiddled with the controls for a minute or two while everyone made sure that they were prepared for beaming. When the Scot was satisfied with the controls, he looked up, face becoming more serious. "Ready when you are, Capt'n."

Jim nodded, face schooling itself. "Energize," he commanded.

Everything vanished in a blaze of light.

* * *

Everything reappeared in a blaze of gold.

Not true gold, but a yellow the same color as the purest gold made up the color of the…

For a matter of fact, what were they?

"Plant life," one of the biologists breathed, eyes shining with excitement. "It looks like a mangrove!"

Indeed, it did. The trees- for Jim thought of them privately as just another kind of tree- looked almost as though someone had dug around the roots; the trunk split into several roots about a meter before it reached the ground, without a main core to support the body. The roots wound about each other to make the trunk itself, and then split again in the air somewhere between ten and fifty meters in the air, where they sprouted a riot of brilliant red flowers in full bloom, complete with orange leaves. While some of the roots- branches?- Jim wasn't sure what to call them, simply reached toward the sky in all their flowered glory, others curved in arcs, coming down to become part of the trunk of yet another tree.

It was breathtaking- an entire network, spread as far as the eye could see, trees winding about each other gracefully. Jim gazed around himself in wonder, turning in a slow circle, absently noting the location of all this crewmembers (within fifteen meters for now, as per protocol) even as he took in the fact that there were tiny white blossoms amongst the ruby red ones, barely visible when there was so much color present. Of course, even the green of the grass beneath their feet barely registered as they all attempted to take in the sheer size of the tree network. "Wow," he breathed aloud. "Do you think these cover the entire land? I mean, the color seems to indicate that it does."

Spock came over to him, looking a little pale. "It is a distinct possibility, Captain," he confirmed.

Jim looked askance at Spock, noting instantly that while the words were as calm and cool as ever, there was a certain breathlessness to the words. "Mr. Spock?" he said, turning to face him warily. "Is there something wrong?" he asked, concerned. Lieutenant Imari came over at the words.

"Captain?" she asked, face a mask.

Spock shook his head. "The percentage of oxygen in this atmosphere is merely higher than what my body is accustomed to," he explained, sounding supremely unconcerned. "I will begin regulating how often I breathe in order to compensate and only intake the concentration of oxygen to which I am accustomed. The problem will then be resolved."

Jim bit his lip. It wasn't that he didn't trust that Spock could do exactly what he said he was going to do- Vulcans could do some pretty freaky things to control their body, due to their intense meditation and self control techniques- but he didn't like the slight green flush that was creeping up into Spock's cheeks. _Is flushing a sign of oxygen poisoning?_ he wondered even as he nodded at Spock's statement. "Very good, Mr. Spock. Just please let me know if you begin to feel the signs of oxygen poisoning or anything else, so we can get you back aboard the ship and to medical attention. In addition, I would feel much more comfortable if a member of security attended to you at all times, should something happen and you are unable to contact us."

There was a mutinous set to Spock's mouth, and Jim knew he was practically itching to assure Jim that he would be perfectly fine, that his control absolutely would not fail him, but Jim couldn't shake the feeling that there was something more wrong than just an intake of too much oxygen. Surely such a thing wouldn't affect him so quickly, even if Spock grew up on Vulcan, where the planet's atmosphere was ten percent thinner on average. Jim shook his head, then took a step back. It wasn't his business; he had to trust that his First Officer knew his body well enough to tell what was wrong. "Very well, Captain," Spock said after a long few seconds.

Jim nodded, relieved. "Very good," he said aloud, wondering why he broke into a cold sweat at the mere thought of something being not quite right with his First Officer. He told himself to shake out of it, and attended to the scientists, who were simply agog at their readings. Jim listened to them solemnly, taking in their frequent references to "sentient networks" and "largest species of plant life" and "fascinating readings". Finally he held up a hand. "So I take it that Starfleet should be extremely interested in this planet?" he asked of them with a chuckle.

Lieutenant Commander Ita'ki rolled its eyes. "I would deem that the most brilliant deduction you've made in a while, sir." Then it dropped any pretense of sarcasm to say eagerly, "How long can we stay? We want to see what kind of variant plant life there is, if any, and determine if the area has any sentient life that would be able to communicate with us."

Jim thought carefully, weighing the pros and cons. "If nothing happens for the next two hours, I'll authorize a proper science team to spend an additional ten hours investigating, but I'm afraid that's all the time that we can spare for this mission," he said.

The lieutenant commander smiled, showing the flat bone plate of its species in all its full glory. "Thank you, sir!" It returned happily.

Jim's face softened as he looked on as lieutenant commander returned to its scans. He always felt good, being able to make someone's day like that. The scientists got more and more involved in their readings, and they spread further and further apart, though they stayed in radio contact, while Jim established communications with the Enterprise and relayed the basic findings, as well as authorizing the tentative assembly of full a science team and a second security team to beam down in about two hour's time if the planet was shown to be safe.

He checked in with everyone on the planet to ensure nothing of note had happened while he'd been in contact with the Enterprise, and then tracked down Spock, unable to shake the feeling that something more was wrong. Jim followed his trail through the winding paths of the trees, the brilliant blue of his shirt standing out far more than that of Jim's own pale gold or that of security's dark red; amongst the trunks and leaves they practically blended in.

When he finally caught up to them, Jim gasped; what he'd thought was Spock's shirt was in fact an enormous version of the trees all around them; instead of the warmer shades of color, however, this tree was full of enormous blues and purples, dark against the gold of the trunk. The tree was perhaps three times as large and as tall as its neighbors, branches arching gracefully. Jim gazed into the canopy above him; the transition from the amethyst blooms to the ruby ones was so gradual it seemed almost seamless, the colors as intense as those used in the most brilliant of paintings.

Jim was so caught up in the glory of the plant before him that he almost missed the pale sheen on Spock's face, the way his hands clutched at the side where his heart rested, his labored breathing. Spock was standing next to the tree, tricorder lying in the grass as Lieutenant Commander Imari moved to support the First Officer. Jim was sprinting forward almost before he consciously realized that Spock was ill, as though some sixth sense had allowed him to tune into the change in his friend.

Between himself and Lieutenant Imari, they were able to lower the wheezing Spock to the ground. His eyes were unfocused, as if he was staring at something that only he could see. He made a small, inarticulate sound and flinched as though he wanted to curl up. Jim had his communicator out within seconds, heart racing and mind working through all the possibilities that could have caused this. "Mr. Scott!" Without waiting for the man's confirmation of his presence, he continued, "Beam Mr. Spock and Lieutenant Imari up _now_. Contact medical and have them send a team down to the transporter room five minutes ago. Tell them Spock had some trouble breathing and collapsed, but none of the rest of us are feeling symptoms of any illness at this time. Once you've got them up there, wait for my signal to beam up the rest of us; I need to get into radio contact with them and alert them as to the change in situation so they'll stay still for transportation." he ordered, knowing his voice might as well have frost coming off it for how cold it was. It wasn't Jim that was speaking, it was Captain Kirk, who was working to prevent a crewmembers death, who was trying to figure out what had happened, who was attempting to ferret out clues that he might have missed that had led to their current situation.

"Aye, Capt'n!" came Scotty's burr, sounding worried. Jim breathed a sigh of relief, shoulders relaxing as white sparks began swirling around Spock's prone form, as well as Imari's. He was already flipping open his communicator, on the verge of barking out order when Spock heaved in a breath and partially sat up, nearly knocking the security officer on the head.

"Captain!" Spock gasped and the word rasped in his throat even as his component molecules began breaking down. "Be caref-"

The pair dissolved in a shower of sparks, and Jim was left alone in the glade, immediately glancing nervously around him, apprehensive in the silent forest that he only now realized was perhaps too silent, flipping his communicator and immediately calling for all teams to standby and await transport back to the Enterprise. Immediately there was confusion, pouring over the line. He didn't have time to deal with their protests, especially not when Spock had attempted to warn him of something. "Mr. Spock is down," he nearly growled, eyes darting around the glade, trying to figure out the source of the danger that Spock had sensed as his hand clenched the comm so tightly that the plastic casing was protesting.

His response had shut them up quickly enough. "Mr. Scott, we are ready for transport. Beam us up!" Jim called, heart palpitating in his chest. What had Spock meant by be careful, why had he collapsed? Jim's breath came quicker, laboring and his chest began to ache slightly. _Am I taking in too much oxygen?_ Jim wondered absently. _Is this the beginnings of oxygen poisoning? Is that the reason for all this? _Jim tried to dismiss it as simple fear and unconscious mimicry of Spock's illness, but the tightness in his chest just got worse.

He dropped to one knee just as the transporter sparks began whirling around his body obscuring his vision- but not so much that he didn't see the enormous sapphire and amethyst tree in front of him begin shuddering, leaves and flowers and branches shaking tremulously. Jim gaped at the life the tree displayed, scrambling back at the display of autonomy, causing the transport to lose its lock on his signal, dissipating the sparks temporarily.

"Capt'n! You've got to stay still!" Mr. Scott was screaming through the communicator. Jim knew he was right. Though transporters could now, thanks to Chekov's reprogramming, compensate for things such as gravitational pull as people fell in freefall, there was no way to properly compensate for uncontrolled movement, such as running, for there was no way to know for sure the correct trajectory, and compensating by hand would mean that Mr. Scott would lose the ability to pull the others back to the Enterprise.

For now, it was him, or them.

Even as Jim struggled to move away from the tree through the pressure on his chest, he was lifting his communicator off his belt, shouting for Scotty to beam the others up, that he couldn't stop running quite yet. That brought Uhura back to the comm, calling to question about the danger, but Jim couldn't answer her, unable to breathe through the pressure on his chest. It was a terrible mix of confusion, dread, fear and anxiety. It sounded like how his mother used to describe the mild panic attacks she'd had when he was a child, trying to get through the pain of losing her husband, of the planet-bound life she now lived, of Jim himself. He dropped to one knee, focusing solely on inhaling and exhaling at a steady rate, sluggishly remembering that controlling his breathing was supposed to help. Behind him, dimly, he realized that the tree had stopped shaking, though he hadn't managed to get much beyond the clearing around the tree before he'd stopped.

He put a hand to his chest, thoughts racing. He didn't consciously feel afraid, or anxious, or any of the emotions that made it hard for people to breathe when they were in a stressful situation. His thoughts weren't particularly panicked, and though he was incredibly worried about Spock, Jim had been calm in far worse situations, such as when Spock had been bleeding green on the ground before him or when he was being tortured. Yet here, just the collapse of his First Officer seemed to have instigated some sort of panic attack.

He struggled to turn, to lean up against one of the trees when he realized that he didn't have the strength to support himself any longer. His own breath rasped in his ears as dark spots danced across his vision, and he knew that he was perhaps thirty seconds away from blacking out. Scotty was shouting through his comm, and Jim knew that he should pick it up and order the man to beam him up, but Jim's limbs were like lead. He gazed up at the canopy of trees, wondering at the fact that he was able to see the sky at all through the riot of flowers and branches. Something dark obscured his vision- a face, perhaps, looking down at him.

The pressure on his chest increased suddenly, as if a rock had been dropped on it before he made a last desperate bid for effort, his vision blackening completely as he fainted.

* * *

TBC


	4. Chapter 3

And now for chapter 3! Thank you, all who reviewed!

* * *

**Chapter Three: For Those Doubts that Swirl All Around Us**

Adults always seemed to think that just because they were whispering, or just because they spoke when a child was asleep, or gone, or any of the other things adults liked to delude themselves into believing when it came to children, they thought that the kids didn't hear.

They were wrong, of course. There is no force in the known universe that can truly stop a child from sensing, even in the most basic ways, when something is terribly wrong.

It was like that for all the kids, as a matter of fact. Sometimes the adults didn't even bother to lower their voices, which Jimmy thought was nigh the height of stupidity, even for adults. "Hello!" he wanted to shout at them when they gave him sad looks as though he didn't understand what they were talking about. "I'm a genius! I'm on Tarsus IV because Governor Kodos runs a camp every year for the best and the brightest, because I figured out how to build a computer at eight, hotwire a car at nine, break into Starfleet's records at ten, read every book in the library by eleven, and was working on linear algebra by twelve. I'm _smart_ you freaking dipshits, and just because you're talking around the corner doesn't mean we can't all hear you!" Jimmy would probably say more, do more, but he didn't quite dare, because then they might drag him up in front of Governor Kodos and make him try to explain his behavior. In Jimmy's opinion, Governor Kodos was weird. He visited the camp once a week, to see how everyone was progressing, but he was always just a little too cool, a little too austere, a little to distant for Jimmy to ever really like him. Jimmy had long since decided it didn't matter, however, so long as it kept him off Earth and away from the lunatic his mom had married.

This opportunity has really been a blessing, for all his complaints. Tensions had been getting high at home; Jimmy thought that Frank was little more than a beer-guzzling imbecile, Frank thought that Jimmy was little more than a wiseass punk, and Winona didn't want to agree with either of them, gently pointing out that they were both in the wrong. Neither her son nor her husband were willing to listen to her, and the stress it put on the house was beginning to tear them apart. Frank hadn't hit him, not quite yet, but Jimmy suspected that he'd dearly wanted to on more than one occasion, but had only refrained himself because he knew without a shadow of a doubt that if he dared to lay a finger on either of her boys, Winona would rip out his entrails and feed them to the carrion birds and then laugh at his pain. Until that time came, however, Winona tried her best to mediate the rocky relationship between her second husband and her youngest son, wearing herself thin trying to make them coexist peacefully.

Jimmy had wanted nothing more than to get out of Iowa for even a month or two, needing to get away from his mom's always sad eyes and Frank's temper. He even wanted to get away from Sam, as his brother was absolutely no help. Sam ignored everyone in the house, keeping his own time and his own schedule. Since he was graduating high school early and headed off to college within the year, he was almost beneath the attention of either Frank or their mom- instead, all their energy was dedicated to keeping Jim in line, a fact that strained the brother's relationship even more. Thus, when Jimmy had heard about Tarsus IV, it had seemed like a perfect opportunity. He'd be able to get out of the house for a while, do what he wanted. His teachers, who viewed him as little more than a precocious troublemaker, genius IQ not withstanding, had been more than happy to recommend Jimmy to the program Kodos was running, if it meant getting him out of the school. Each year, the top twenty students from ages ten to twenty who completed the tests that Kodos devised, which covered a variety of topics such as science, engineering, math, language, music and so on were invited to come to Tarsus IV and study what they wished; it was his attempt to get more people interested in the outlying colonies, and he called it the Colony Outreach Program.

Too often those outer colonies were ignored, even by those with the best intentions. They were so far out that even Starfleet rarely flew there, so far out that not many people were willing to leave from a place where they had family, a history, in order to start from scratch, in some cases literally. Kodos was making an effort to get people interested in coming to Tarsus IV despite the colonial status; by welcoming young geniuses into his fold, he hoped that he would be able to stir more interest and empathy for those on what too often seemed to be the outer reaches of the universe.

For Jimmy, it was the perfect escape. If he was accepted, everything would be paid for, including his travel expenses and food. He would even be granted a small stipend for buying what he wished, though any major expenses or medical bills were still considered to be the responsibility of the parents or organization from which the child came. It would last for eight months, since it took the better part of a month to get all the way out to Tarsus IV and another month coming back, and it was the best solution to his troubles that Jimmy could imagine.

Or so he'd thought.

Now though- now there were too many whispers for Jimmy to be comfortable with being on Tarsus IV, too many adults casting a worried eye over the "campers". Even Kodos had been stiffer than usual the last three weeks, his deep, resonant voice carrying dark hints that warned Jimmy that it probably wouldn't be safe to be alone with him these days, so Jimmy did his best to avoid all but the most mandatory of interactions. Though Jimmy didn't catch too many whispers himself, the between him and the rest of the students in Kodos's camp, they'd managed to put most of the pieces together about two months into their eight month stay.

There'd been a plague spreading through the food supply like wild fire. All the grain not yet in storage had been consumed by the greedy fungus, and there was evidence to suggest that a large portion of the vegetable crop was next. Kodos had all his scientists on it, demanding that they drop all other projects and focus on working on a solution for the better part of twelve hours a day, if not more- not that any of them were complaining. The stark reality was that if they _didn't_ solve this, they would all die of starvation long before they are able to successfully alert Starfleet and actually get relief supplies. The local wild life was perishing too, so everything was getting more and more expensive. It wasn't like they had any ships to alert neighbors for help either- besides, who would they call, when the nearest colony was the better part of a hundred light years away, and who's food supply would be tight enough for their own people?

Though he tried not to, Jimmy worried a lot, at night especially, and had trouble sleeping, waking up with nightmares filled with thin bodies and crying babies, because he'd read about the effects of starvation, of what it did to the body, and he felt a constant undercurrent of nausea every time he ate, a small part of him wondering how bad it was, wondering if this would be his last meal. Whispers were the damndest thing- it seemed like the more people whispered about the so called secret, the more people knew. It was practically public knowledge that until Starfleet got there, what food they had was pretty much the only food that they were ever going to be able to collect from the farms, unless the scientists came up with a miracle solution. Even so, until someone said it aloud, until it was openly acknowledged, it was still only rumor and hearsay. Admittedly, it was rumor and hearsay that everyone accepted as truth, but people had been proved wrong before and they would be again.

All in all, it was pretty bad, though, and what proof they did have was pretty damn undeniable. It would still be a month before the message about the famine reached Starfleet, perhaps another three or four at minimum before they could raise the necessary supplies to bring to Tarsus IV, and then another month to bring it all out here; in a best case scenario, they were looking at about six months before aid was brought, maybe more.

Still, the camp wasn't half bad, everything else aside. For the first time in his life, Jimmy was actually getting along with the other kids he was with, because they were mostly on the younger side, all really precocious like him, but none of them were really fighters the same way Jimmy was. Sure, they could fillet you with a well placed verb, and might take an unholy satisfaction in fixing your equation's mistakes, but generally, they were all like him, misfits, of some sort or another. Of the twenty students, though, Jimmy was only really close to a couple of them, because though Jimmy didn't outright attack them, he still felt weird around some of the people in the program, the older students especially, as he didn't know how to approach them or talk to them. Some of them were even more messed up than he was, in his opinion, flinching at shadows.

Even so, for the first time he could remember, he had friends. There were Karrin and O'las, Karrin from Mars and O'las from Kavonna; they'd met on the ship coming over the Tarsus IV, and the pair of them were two peas in a pod- same interest in music, in books, in hobbies, and if they weren't two of the sweetest people he'd ever met, he'd have teased them a million times over about the fact that they clearly ought to just get married if they were going to act like an old married couple, for all they were fourteen. Then there was Savik, an Andorian who was constantly biting off more than he could chew, and cheeky to boot. Jimmy probably would've hated him the entire time had he not found the boy (or rather, Andorian gender equivalent thereof) crying in the gardens. Since then, he'd taken pity on Savik and was currently endeavoring to show him how to have fun, which Jim had quickly discovered was the only time that he wasn't an ass, even if these days he was more a well-meaning ass than anything else. Finally, there was Big J, which was short for Jabulani Jawanza, which was far too much of a mouthful for everyday speech, and had been shortened to JJ within hours of everyone meeting. Big J, however, was not only the oldest kid of the group, at seventeen, but also the biggest, at nearly seven feet tall, all lanky limbs and muscle. He reminded Jimmy of nothing so much as the Big Friendly Giant, however, and thus Big J had been born. Jimmy liked hanging out with Big J the best, because he was the most patient individual that Jimmy had ever met, willing answering even the most inane of Jimmy's questions- or those of anyone else, for that matter- in addition to helping with everyone's projects, helping keep an eye on the younger children, and generally making himself useful. Jimmy admired Big J, and wanted like hell to be like him.

The five of them hung out a lot, sharing slowly but surely the painful little things that had made them come out here, to infinity and beyond. Big J's family dying from Pierce's fever, Karrin's bullying at school that had led to a suicide attempt, Savik's issues with anger management, O'las's simple interest in seeing more of the world after being stuck in a small hometown with small-minded people. Jimmy was a little like all of them, and told them so, though he didn't quite dare mention the fact that his father was George Kirk. They were geniuses, they'd probably put it together within days if they hadn't already, but they also respected privacy, even that horrible privacy-that-wasn't-really-privacy that had come in the wake of the Kelvin disaster.

So they chugged along, caught up in this strange dichotomy where they were friends with each other, where they hung out and made each other laugh as if this was just a vacation that they had earned for everything they'd been put through in the last couple of years. On the other hand, the whispers were an ever-present fear tingling in the back of all their minds, causing nightmares and suspicion to take over their minds. It got to the point that Jimmy almost wished that Kodos would just come out and _say_ what they were all thinking, because it would be easier to deal with if the problem was acknowledged, out in the open. He certainly knew that holding it in sure as hell didn't help at home- if he held it in, if Frank did, then when the explosion _did_ happen, it was all the worse for having been restrained for so long.

Jimmy thought that way right up until that was what actually happened.

Because once the truth was out, all hell broke loose.

It began when Kodos assembled the entire planet at the Governor's estate, a huge sprawling affair that Jimmy had always thought was rather overdone; he'd always preferred sleek lines and understated grace. He'd always thought it expressed more power than sheer overwhelming opulence- after all, screaming from the rooftops that you're rich is considerably less classy than impressing everyone in sight without have to breath so much as a word. Jimmy wondered what Kodos was going to say to them all; he and the others from Kodos's program were assembled too, joining the 8,216 men, women, and children already in attendance.

"Welcome!" Kodos said from his balcony, spreading his hands in a grandiose gesture of greeting. Jimmy nearly snorted, as the man's overblown, somewhat pompous image was confirmed in his inner thoughts. Kodos was wearing a frilly number that Jimmy thought belonged more on an actor than a governor. They were all looking up at him from his courtyard and gardens, vids set up so everyone would be able to see and hear him clearly; Jimmy and the others were near the front, and could see the man himself.

"Welcome, members of Tarsus IV!" Kodos called, and again Jimmy had to resist the urge to snort. Did Kodos think that they didn't know what planet they were on? Bored, he began looking around even as he listened, watching as a little girl picked her nose and scowled at her finger. A mother shushed a small child, rocking him back and forth absentmindedly as she focused on the vid near her.

"Jimmy Kirk!" Abby hissed, matronly face creasing in a scowl as she elbowed him. Jimmy dodged the blow on instinct, scowling just as heavily at the woman in charge of the program. "Listen!" she demanded.

With a sigh, Jimmy redirected his attention to Kodos. Thus far it was nothing interesting; Kodos had merely confirmed the fact that the plague had destroyed a majority of the food supply, to much gasping and muttering. Jimmy frowned, wondering what the fuss was; now that it was established, couldn't they just focus on what they were going to do about it? Adults were so annoying, that way. They could deliberate for days when a simple yes or no answer would have sufficed.

Kodos raised a hand for silence. "I realize that I have come bearing bad news, people of Tarsus IV, but first and foremost, I want to assure you all that I have all my people working on a solution at the moment, looking for a way to permanently end the plague and hopefully grow some food in greenhouse conditions to compensate from the loss of part of the harvest. In addition, a message is already on its way to Starfleet, alerting them of our problem and asking for relief ships to come our way. However, in the meantime, I ask that you carefully consider your food purchases until we hear from Starfleet. Thank you for your time; I will continue to send out vids keeping you all updated as to what research we are currently working on as well as our status in regards to Starfleet." With that, Kodos barely inclined his head and walked back into his home.

The crowds broke into chatter, every single word of the speech being dissected. Jimmy shrugged at it all, even with the worry niggling in his heart. Did they have enough food to survive even the next month, let alone the six or so it would take for Starfleet to get here, in all likeliness? Jimmy shook his head, shivering a little. Surely if they rationed the food, they would be able to keep almost everyone alive; Jimmy wasn't a pessimist, at least, he didn't think so. He was a realist, and knew that it was exceedingly probable that at least some of the old and young would lose their lives before this entire mess was over. He swallowed roughly, struggling to stay nonchalant as the hugeness of the situation really began to hit home.

"Jimmy!" Big J intoned, his deep voice rumbling right through Jimmy's body, making him pay attention instantly. "We're leaving, come on!"

Jimmy trotted off through the crush of people, dodging flailing limbs with ease as he made his way back to the others in the program. They were waiting for him, each showing a little impatience. "I'm here, I'm here," Jimmy grumbled at the irritation he was faced with. "Let's go."

Everyone sighed or rolled their eyes as their nature dictated and they made their way as a group to the southernmost edges of Kodos's grounds, where the program labs and dorms were. Everyone was silent as they walked, even bossy Abby and talkative Rukia, when normally it was difficult to get either of them to stop chattering. The silence was uneasy and strained as the reality settled into everyone's bones.

Famine.

Everyone knew what the word was, but so few had happened in the last seven centuries, and they'd been comparatively mild, so that no one really _knew_ what it was like. They might have read the history, they might know the facts, but to actually attempt to live through it, when they were out here on their own…

Jimmy shuddered, looking ahead without seeing.

They were all silent that night. While they might have laughed when they were heading over to Kodos's main estates, now there was only strained camaraderie and worried smiles that didn't reach anyone's eyes. Dinner was worst of all, as everyone was unsure how to treat the meal in front of them, wondering if it was okay to be eating their fill, wondering what the others on Tarsus IV were eating, as they weren't subsisting on the goodwill of Kodos. Everyone did, eventually, eat of course, because they all suspected they should eat the extra food while they could, in order to store whatever they could for what would befall them. Even that thought, however, was…uncomfortable for completely indefinable reasons. It gave the entire room a wild air, as though there were animals prowling next to the sentient beings, as though the sentient beings were no better than animals. Conversation was stilted, and everyone quickly departed from the table, leaving to go to their individual rooms instead of staying up to do any of the numerous activities they normally enjoyed together.

Jimmy was no exception, and he entered his room and stripped down, opening his window a crack to let in the cool late summer air, which was just beginning to be touched with a hint of chill from fall. He leaned on the windowsill, looking out at the stars and wishing dearly that he could get a message out to his mother and brother about what was going on. However, a message wouldn't reach his mother any faster than the Starfleet message would; since his mom was still in Starfleet as an engineer, she heard all the latest news directly from the source. His message, going through civilian channels, probably wouldn't reach his mother until at least a month after she'd heard about what was happening.

Jimmy shook his head, unwilling to cause his mom undue stress. She worried about him enough without hearing Jimmy voice aloud his fears about what would happen in the coming months. He angrily dashed away the tears that were welling in his eyes. He hated, _hated_ crying. With an angry set to his shoulders, Jimmy pulled on his pajamas, though it was just turning dark on the northwestern horizon, put on some quiet music and climbed in his bed, focusing on each and every breath as it entered and exited his body, letting the music swirl around him in an effort to soothe away any thoughts that entered his head.

He didn't think it would work, but somehow, between one breath and another, he fell asleep.

Until, of course, a rude hand shook his shoulder, rocking his entire body back and forth. Jimmy sat up instantly, narrowly avoiding bashing in the head of the person above him with his own. He did not, however, miss bashing them with his fist, on automatic reflex, and the intruder let out a low moan as they stumbled away from him.

"Jimmy, I hope you didn't do that on purpose," Big J groaned as he rubbed at his cheek; the blow hadn't been particularly well aimed, but it had all the energy of panic behind it and thus had been more than enough to cause the older boy pain.

Jimmy automatically leaped out of bed. "Big J!" he exclaimed, running over to peer at the other boy's face in the dark. "Are you alright?" He cursed, fumbling for the light, but Big J caught his hand before he was able to turn it on.

"No time for that," Big J rumbled, voice deep and serious. "We've got to get out of here."

Jimmy stilled, gazing at the dark man who nearly disappeared in the shadows. "What? Why?" he asked, hating that he sounded nearly as nervous as he felt. He tried to push down his worry and fear even as a thousand different horrors surfaced in his mind. He swallowed through an unusually dry throat.

Big J hauled him up with next to no effort. "We ain't got time for that," he said in his low voice, teeth flashing in the darkness as he spoke. "Abby just told me to get everyone awake, dressed and downstairs as soon as possible."

Jimmy licked his lips. "Right. Where are we going?" He asked, hoping that a location would give him a better idea as to what might be going on. He heart was starting to beat faster by the minute.

Big J was quiet for a moment. "We're headed to the Governor's house," he said, and his voice was strangely neutral as he said it.

"So I guess I should be putting on my best?" Jimmy tried to joke, but neither of them so much as smiled in the attempt. "Alright, get out of here. I'll get dressed in a minute and be downstairs."

Big J nodded. He turned to go and then paused. "No lights though," he warned, voice going a little rough. "Abby says that we don't want to draw any attention to ourselves, so the less noticeable we are, the better. We're…not exactly as well protected as the Governor is."

It was as though Big J had dumped a bucket of ice water over his head. Jimmy started shaking uncontrollably, shivering there in the cool night air. Fear clawed at his stomach and he wondered if he was about to be sick. Big J either saw or sensed his expression, and in the darkness he clapped one huge hand onto Jimmy's shoulder, the warmth of his hand and the close proximity of his body giving off an almost unnatural sense of heat to Jimmy's perceived coldness.

"Don't worry, kid. I won't let anything happen to you," Big J promised, and there was a restrained fury underneath it, that someone would dare to cause pain here and now to his friends. Jimmy basked in the safety for a moment, before roughly shoving at Big J's chest.

"Yeah, whatever," he returned gruffly. "I can take care of myself."

"Of course you can, Jimmy," Big J agreed neutrally, before leaving the room again, presumably to help wake up the rest of the people.

Jimmy didn't even think- he just thrust his arms through whatever clothing he came to first, which happened to be a pair of jeans and a long sleeve shirt he'd discarded yesterday when it got too warm but hadn't ever returned to its drawer, and hurried downstairs, stomach lurching as he wondered what he would find.

Perhaps half of the people in Kodos's program had been gathered in the main sitting room, sitting or standing awkwardly as their nature dictated, casting glances at each other as if they suspected that someone else had the answer but was refusing to share it. Jimmy could just barely hear a set of voices from the kitchen. One was definitely Abby, but Jimmy didn't recognize the voice of the other person with her. It sounded like a man though, his voice a warm, medium baritone.

Within ten minutes, everyone was assembled, Big J coming down with the youngest kids, who were still rubbing their eyes and yawning at the interruption to their sleep. Savik looked especially grumpy, as did Gretchen. Abby poked her head into the room a few minutes later, counted the fact that all twenty heads were present, had a whispered and hurried conversation with the person that was with her, and then came back out with him.

The man was perhaps six foot, lean, with dark hair and blue eyes. Jimmy caught himself studying the man, wondering where he'd seen him before, and wondering why he kept picturing him with blond hair. He had the strangest feeling that the man was usually scowling too, and always ready with a witty retort in a soft southern accent. Jimmy shook his head, trying to dispel the notion of déjà vu as he focused on what the man was saying to the entire group.

The man spoke in the southern accent he'd imagined, and Jimmy repressed a shudder at the strangeness. Even though he hadn't been able to stop himself from imagining his voice, he also couldn't shake the feeling that it should have been without an accent, clean and crisp. Jimmy shook his head at his own feelings. He stared at the man for a second more, catching a glimpse of a set of bones tattooed on the man's arm. _Bones,_ Jimmy thought, and then wondered at his fascination, finally applying himself to the man's speech.

"- waking you up, but Abby said that you were all too smart to follow without opening your mouths, so we figured we should tell you what's going on." the man said. "I'm Doctor Eric Jameson, a friend of Abby's." After the brief introduction, the smile dropped away from his face as he schooled his features into a mask of neutrality despite the bruise that was blossoming on one cheek. "After Kodos's announcement this afternoon confirming the fact that we're currently without a steady food supply, those who could afford it immediately began buying up all the non-perishable food available. Within three hours, however, there was no more to be purchased. Someone, somewhere, decided that he wasn't taking a shopkeeper's word as an answer, and decided to see what he could find on his own. Fighting broke out almost immediately, followed quickly by riots and mobs across all four cities. I've been doing what I can to help with the influx of patients, but Doctor Infirti, my partner, sent me to go to the areas that the mobs hadn't yet reached, to warn them as to what was happening. When I heard that the riots were spreading towards the Governor's lands, I figured that his servants and guests might want a heads up." Dr. Jameson smiled a little wanly, and Jimmy suddenly realized that the man was probably exhausted, if the dark circles under his eyes and shaking hands were any indication.

"So now what do we do? We obviously can't stay here in the open," Yana said as soon as the doctor had finished speaking. "Besides basic locks and whatnot, there aren't exactly a ton of security measures here, and if they suspect that we have food here, the paltry security won't stop them."

"I contacted Captain Evans, head of Kodos's guard twenty minutes ago, and he has assured us that we will be able to take refuge in Kodos's home until this passes. Unfortunately, we'll be on our own to get there." Abby said firmly. "Kodos is currently in the process of authorizing martial law to break up the riots and return everyone to their homes, as well as to take care of the wounded, so there aren't any extra people to escort us to the Governor's home. So I'd like for you to grab your coats, perhaps a book or something so you can keep yourself occupied while we're there, and then you are going to join both myself and Dr. Jameson in making our way across the grounds. Those of you who are wearing light clothing, I'd like you to change it to something darker if you have it. We don't want to be seen by the rioters. Am I clear?"

Everyone nodded, various degrees of worry and mutiny etched into each person's face. Jimmy didn't feel worried or mutinous as he went back upstairs- he felt only a sick pervasive fear that made him wish that his mom was there. He knew it was stupid; his dad was proof enough that just because you loved someone didn't mean that nothing was going to happen to them, so he stopped wishing that his mom was there and started wishing that the memory of his dad would keep him strong.

He wanted to go home.

Jimmy forced down his pathetic thoughts and told himself sternly to buck up and grow a pair, collecting the holopics he'd taken with him from home, as well as his PADD from his computer so he would have something to listen to or read, whatever he felt like. He also tucked away the one paper book he'd brought with him, a centuries old copy of _Changes_ by Jim Butcher. It had been a favorite book of his dad's, and he brought it with him everywhere he went.

He was the second to last one down, Big J coming down the stairs right behind him, keeping as quiet as they could. Most people had their jackets thrown over their shoulders or arms instead of on. While the night was cool, it wasn't that cool. Like the others, Jimmy shouldered his bag, slinging it over one shoulder. Even though Abby has said that they would only be in Kodos's residence for a short while, Jimmy could tell from the way that some of the packs bulged that everyone had taken everything of sentimental or true value. He could hardly blame them. He hadn't so much as glanced at his clothes, but his PADD, his pictures- all of that was coming with them. He wasn't leaving it for some half-witted mobster to go pawing through, not when the pictures and the book were some of the only things he had left of his father. He wasn't leaving it for someone who would take what little he had of home.

When Abby had counted the heads again, coming up with all twenty, plus herself and the doctor, she led them across Kodos's grounds to where his house was, a good three miles from the program facility. It was over flat terrain, however, with a walking path and everything, with bushes and trees aplenty to hide their progress in the darkness. Abby had made everyone hold hands, however, something that most of the older kids, like Yana and Gretchen, and even Big J protested. Abby had shut them up with a few hissed comments about them being needed to keep an eye on the younger kids. Jimmy wanted to protest being young- he was thirteen, after all- but silenced his protest under Big J's warning glance. Abby headed the line, followed by Dr. Jameson, then Yana who gripped Savik's arm, then Gretchen, O'las, Karrin, Nawat, Donna, Andrelinna, Deshtom, Ianto, Ebenezer, Gim and Gam, collectively known as the twins, Roshaun, Memeki, Rukia, Izoivo, and Daniel, followed by Jimmy and Big J leading up the end of the line. In their hurry to get to safety, they walked at a near jog, and the walk took twenty minutes instead of the usual thirty five. It was done in complete silence, with only the ragged sound of breathing from some of the less in shape members of their party to indicate that there was anyone present in the foliage at all.

Through the foliage, Jimmy could just manage to see peeks of the city, which was set in the valley; distant shouts and screams could be heard, and a small portion of the city appearing to be smoking, if not quite on fire yet. Dr. Jameson made an abortive motion several times towards the destruction. Jimmy could tell that he wanted nothing more than to head down and help those he could, and he exchanged several words with Abby. Abby shook her head steadily, indicating the people behind her. Dr. Jameson's face was tight for a moment, before he finally picked up Deshtom, the youngest at only eleven years by his species' count, who was sobbing as quietly as he could manage, clearly not used to keeping up a constant driving pace. Abby and Big J did the same, picking up Ianto and Memeki respectively, the next youngest and obviously on the verge of outright panic. When they were in picked up, each clutched the person that was carrying them, even Memeki's spidery, long legs wrapping firmly around Big J's torso. The rest of them closed ranks: Jimmy stuck near Big J, with Savik dropping back to stay near his friends. Karrin and O'las found each other's hands, staying near the head of the group where Yana and Gretchen were standing. Instead of being strung out in a line, they slowly formed a steadily moving clump, sticking as close together as they could without tripping each other up, putting encouraging hands on the arms of those who were having trouble keeping up.

When then finally got to Kodos's residence, they all stared for a moment at the door, wondering what to do next. Abby pushed her way forward, constantly adjusting Ianto's weight so it would be more comfortable for her to carry him. Sweat clung to her brow, and the free locks of her graying hair were stuck to her face.

"Captain Evans programmed in my biometrics," she gasped. "Ianto, I've got to set you down now, honey, alright?"

Though Ianto made a sound of protest, he let himself be sat down easily enough. "There shouldn't be anyone but the most basic of people; the guards are helping keep martial law, and the servants are busy organizing aid. We'll just take ourselves to the rooms that Captain Evans arranged for us, and stay there until we know what's happening, alright? Dr. Jameson, thank you for your help. You're welcome to stay with us, but if you feel your duties lead you back to the city, I won't stop you." Abby, bossy, gossipy Abby, bit her lip, looking too old and frail for the picture she usually presented of herself. Dr. Jameson nodded once, and without a backward glance he disappeared back into the foliage, lost from sight within seconds.

Abby nodded, looking strained, and then turned back to the door, waiting patiently as a retinal scan, DNA confirmation, voice print and heartbeat were taken, proving to at least a reasonable extent that Abby was who she said she was. She indicated that she had the members of Kodos's Colony Outreach Program with her, and each of them were ordered to step up to the machine so their readings could be recorded for future analysis. Jimmy knew that Abby begrudged the security for every moment they were forced to stand waiting outside, for her shoulders were lined with tension. When that was completed, the door slid open, Abby letting loose a breath in relief as the tension leaked out of her shoulders once more. She herded them all in, leading them to the rooms that Captain Evans had reserved for them with unerring precision.

It wasn't a very big set of rooms, just three side by side with connecting doors. There were some couches, a sink with some cups nearby if they wanted some water, some pillows and blankets so they could return to sleep if they choose. Abby's lined face smoothed out a little at that, and she immediately set to making sure that the youngest were returned to their interrupted sleep. When Memeki, Ianto, Deshtom, Savik, Karrin, O'las and Andrelinna had returned to sleep (Jimmy had been securely tucked under some covers despite his protest, but he was unwilling to go to sleep just yet. He wanted to hear what they were going to say, suspecting that they were trying to keep the younger kids from being afraid by talking about the really horrible stuff ), the older kids and Abby sat on the couches, clutching water and began to talk in voices barely above a whisper. Jimmy had learned how to pretend to be asleep from Frank's frequent attempts to catch him awake after curfew, and he was able to successfully fool Abby when she came over to check them.

"Poor dears," she clucked, and Jimmy could just imagine her anxious expression as he heard the couch settle under her weight. "I wish we didn't have to tell them all that."

"They're probably some of the smartest people on their respective planets," Big J rumbled, and Jimmy swore he could practically hear the vibrations through the floor. "Telling them is better than making them wonder. Those genius minds probably would have come up with something far worse…and you know what they say: the fear of the unknown is more paralyzing that anything else. It's better they know."

"Yeah," Gretchen and Yana agreed in unison, and they both let loose nervous chuckles.

"If they'd seen the city without an explanation, I don't like to think of their reaction," Daniel muttered. "It was bad enough seeing it _with_ an explanation." His voice, usually a light tenor, had deepened and become rough from the smoke. As if to confirm Jimmy's suspicions, Daniel coughed and sniffled a bit, grumbling about his allergies. He was allergic to the usual allergy meds, and thus was stuck mostly with old style antihistamine pills for the most part, which had all but fallen out of use.

There was movement, and Ebenezer handed Daniel a tissue, saying gruffly, "Here," for which Daniel responded with his thanks.

Despite his best efforts, however, it wasn't more than two or three minutes, before Jimmy lost track of the conversation as he slowly, but surely, slipped into sleep, realizing that he must have been more tired than he thought.

* * *

TBC


	5. Chapter 4

Here is the next chapter! Enjoy!

* * *

**Chapter 4: For Those Lives that Tear at the Seams**

"Doctor!" Scotty was shouting into his headset even as his fingers flew over the keys, working to beam the rest of the team up. "Doctor, you've gotta get down here!" he bellowed as the sparks dissipated, revealing Lieutenant Imari and Spock, the former supporting the latter.

Scotty could see even from here the sheen of sweat on Spock's face, something Scotty didn't think was even possible for Vulcans- none of the planets, desert or otherwise had ever brought perspiration to the surface of the half-Vulcan's skin. He hadn't thought they even _had_ any sweat glands, though the fact that the First Officer was a half-Vulcan may have made him an exception to the rule. Scotty shook his head, pushing the random thoughts out in order to concentrate on his job, already working on beaming the rest of the party up. He barely acknowledged Doctor McCoy's hurried response, knowing that the doctor would be coming to the transporter room at a full sprint, ready to do what was necessary to save Spock's life.

Indeed, Doctor McCoy _was_ racing down to the transporter room at full tilt, Nurse Chapel on his heels, both their faces calm and cool. Almost before Doctor McCoy had left medical bay, Lieutenant Imari was speaking to McCoy, detailing what had happened on the planet, Spock's collapse and Jim's subsequent command for them to beam up, reporting that the rest of the team would shortly be on their way.

McCoy rattled off several questions in the minute or so it took him to get down to the transporter room, asking both about Spock's health and Imari's, trying to identify if the cause of the collapse might have been something that could spread to the rest of the ship, or something that was affecting only Spock. He burst into the transporter room and dropped to his knees next to Spock, barely responding to the dull thud that indicated that his knees wouldn't be pleased with him when this was all over. He immediately began scanning Spock from his prone position just off the transporter pad, ignoring as the rest of the landing party was beamed up. Nurse Chapel turned her tricorder to Lieutenant Imari, barking off prompt orders for a decontamination sweep of the entire room as well as requests for Medical to receive the entire landing party for more tests.

McCoy continued his work even as the decontamination beam swept through the room, recognizing the members of the ship by their DNA and destroying all other biological systems that might be present in the room. Spock's heart was on the verge of straining itself, fluttering so fast under McCoy's carefully probing fingers that it was simply a constant thrum. McCoy's tricorder said much of the same; Spock's heart rate was hovering around 397, the force of which could theoretically rupture something important with the sheer speed of the blood that was being pumped around his system. His blood pressure was through the roof, brain activity off the charts, and he was struggling to breathe, chest heaving as he fought to pull in oxygen.

"90 ccs of imparzapan," Doctor McCoy barked, holding his hand out expectantly. The Vulcan sedative had worked on Spock before to slow his heart rate and breathing, which was exactly what he needed. With a hiss, the sedative was injected, Doctor McCoy already barking out orders for an inhibitor that would work to protect the half-Vulcan's sensitive psionic abilities from going haywire and picking up everything in range until Spock could control them himself. Between the two drugs, Spock sagged within seconds, limbs going slack and head tilting back as his entire body slowly stopped fighting. Doctor McCoy took a few more readings on the tricorder, satisfied as Spock's vitals began to drop back into an acceptable range.

They loaded him up onto the stretcher carefully even as Doctor McCoy continued to scan the half-Vulcan for signs of what might have caused the attack. There was no sign of the body fighting any sort of parasitic or bacteria agent, nor could he detect even the slightest hint of a virus. Doctor McCoy would have to run tests to double check for foreign particles, but the first test indicated that Spock was clean of any outside agent that might have caused the reaction; there wasn't even so much as an allergy to pin the attack on; everything in his bloodstream showed up on his tricorder as being either Vulcan or human.

When they got to Medical Bay Spock was moved to a biobed, features still smooth under the influence of the sedatives, vitals still falling until they reached his normal statistics, heart rate returning to normal as he began taking in slow, deep breaths. His brain activity was calming too; instead of the wild spikes and drops he'd detects, it was closer to the slow and steady rise and fall that he was accustomed to seeing. Pleased, McCoy took the needed blood samples before giving Spock an IV of fluids to help clean out his system, in addition to another dose of a less intense sedative, amaraphin, which would keep Spock's heart rate slow, for him, at least, and his psionic ability muted without keeping him unconscious for too much longer.

From there, it was an hour or two of activity, running various blood tests as they scrambled to find the cause of Spock's fit and see if it had been passed to someone else on the landing party; everyone came back completely clean, not so much as a changed nucleotide from the trip. There were no foreign agents in the blood, and the ERI and PAA scans were clean, no there were no mind or memory issues present.

There was, in fact, nothing.

With the exception of Spock, none of them had reacted to anything on the planet. As McCoy examined the results of the test, he suspected that Spock hadn't reacted to the planet either. Actually, if Doctor McCoy was reading the results right, Spock had actually been reacting to _himself_, in a sort of Lupus-esque sort of way. The only thing that he'd found in Spock's blood besides the normal compounds was the presence of a protein his Vulcan texts had called izirin, which was the only thing that McCoy could think of that had caused the reaction. However, McCoy had no idea as to how or why the protein had produced such a reaction. He'd asked the local Vulcan expert, but M'Benga hadn't had much of clue what it did; in his studies on Vulcan, through all his training, he'd never come across the protein in a patient.

McCoy was about to do some more in depths searches in the Vulcan database- he wasn't quite willing to bring the Ambassador on the case, not quite yet, though he had been alerted as to his son's condition- when he was commed by Sulu.

"What?" He growled, half an eye still on his PADD where the information lay.

"I need you for a meeting now, Doctor," the pilot said with only the slightest hint of a waver entering his voice.

"_You_ need me?" Doctor McCoy said, surprise and confusion filling his tone. "But…" the bottom dropped out of his stomach as he realized that he hadn't seen Jim beam up with the rest of the team; he'd been so focused on helping Spock not die that he hadn't actually registered much else. In addition, it had been Nurse Chapel and Doctor M'Benga running the tests too, with Doctor McCoy alerting Ambassador Sarek as to his son's condition and both isolating, sequencing, identifying and doing research on the protein he'd found in Spock's blood. He hadn't so much as seen another member of the landing party since he'd started working on the case, simply assuming that Jim was alright despite the fact that he knew that Jim would have normally been peppering McCoy with questions, trying to figure out what was wrong with Spock. McCoy felt awful that he hadn't so much as spared a thought for his friend, except to bless the fact that Jim had the foresight for once to leave him alone while he was working. He hadn't even registered that Jim hadn't been at Spock's beside either, though heaven knew he often refused to leave his First's side when the half-Vulcan was ill or injured.

Guilt roiling in his stomach and making him feel nauseous, McCoy swallowed. "Jim didn't beam up, did he."

There was a telling silence on the other end.

"As Acting Captain, Kirk's Second Officer, I am fulfilling the Captain's duties while First Officer Spock is unable to," Sulu finally said carefully.

"Dammit," McCoy groaned. He set aside his guilt so he could focus- if he needed to, he could flay himself later for his insensitivity. "Alright, just tell me when and where, so we can straighten this whole mess out."

McCoy could practically hear Sulu's nod. "We're meeting in twenty minutes in the conference room on deck 3." Though Sulu was Acting Captain, he didn't seem interested in holding the meeting in the Captain's ready room, as was his right. McCoy supposed that doing so would make Jim's absence all the more noticeable.

McCoy just sighed, shaking his head sadly. "Sure, I'll be there."

Promptly twenty minutes later, McCoy, Uhura, Sulu, Chekov, Scott, the entire landing party and Lieutenant Commander Jefferson, Head of Security gathered in the conference room.

The picture that had been painted by the landing party and Scotty of the events on the planet was quite grim: Spock had had trouble breathing almost as soon as they'd gotten down to the planet, but had claimed it was simply because the oxygen levels were much greater than he was used to. Everyone had spread out, exploring, and Jim had presumably tracked Spock and Lieutenant Imari down after speaking with Uhura about their basic observation and about beaming down a larger party to take samples and more fully explore the area. About the same time the tree had begun shaking, Spock had collapsed, vitals going out of control, before trying to warn the Captain about some danger just before being beamed up. No one knew what the danger was, however, since besides some small insects and the trees, no life had been detected by the scientists, and no one at the meeting except for Imari had been there when the larger tree had moved, and she hadn't seen anything that would constitute as dangerous. The Captain had then given orders to beam everyone else back too, but had begun running before he could be properly beamed up. By the time the landing party had returned to the Enterprise and Scotty had turned his hand to beaming up the Captain, he had disappeared, signal lost.

After a moment of tense silence, McCoy reported what he knew: the entire landing party was clear of any diseases that might have been picked up on the planet, and the only thing foreign in Spock's blood was the protein izirin. While the sequence was on record, and though it was a recognized protein on the Vulcan database, it had no purpose that McCoy could discern from his research, which in and of itself made McCoy suspicious. The Vulcans were known for investigating everything and anything. They wouldn't have left a protein's purpose unexplored.

Sulu made his next commands in the same smooth way that he did everything else, standing in a motion so seamless that McCoy almost didn't realize he was moving until he'd already stood. "Doctor McCoy, I'd like you to continue your research, but if you don't find anything within the next two hours, you will ask Ambassador Sarek if he recognizes the protein and can tell you its purpose. Mr. Scott, you will continue doing your best to scan for the Captain's signal. If you find it, beam him up immediately. I realize that our scans aren't working at optimum level at this time due to the star's radiation levels, so feel free to make any adjustments necessary to compensate, so long as you record the changes. Uhura, look for radio messages being passed within the planet's atmosphere. Chekov, head down to the science labs and get everyone who has even an ounce of knowledge of the scanning technology to look for a civilization that's been hidden, for example, beneath the planet's crust, or shielded from view. I'd like the members of the landing party to take the samples they collected to the planet to the labs for testing, and Lieutenant Commander Jefferson will begin collecting members for a security team, which will be beamed to the planet's surface in six hours if we are unable to get clear reading from the scans by that point, in order to search on foot."

Sulu took a deep breath, looking each of them in the face and letting them see that the inner will he possessed was as strong as any one of his swords. Immediately, everyone's backs straightened. "We will _not_ be leaving the Captain there. Alright? Let's go."

Everyone in the room smiled at that, taking heart in Sulu's conviction and letting it strengthen their own will. With just the briefest of goodbyes, they all stood and left, Sulu, Chekov and Uhura returning to the bridge, the lieutenant commander for the Security office, the landing party for the labs and McCoy back to medical bay.

Two hours later, however, any hope that Sulu had inspired in McCoy had long since drained away, leaving him cold, tired, and worried for his friend. Jim, who always had a glass of something strong on the anniversaries of all his failures, Jim, who always had a kind word and a joke (usually both inappropriate in nature and inappropriate in timing), Jim who would die for those on his ship…

"Doctor McCoy?"

McCoy jumped, whirling around with a curse on his lips until he caught sight of Ambassador Sarek's face.

McCoy just barely managed to restrain himself from asking the Vulcan what the hell he thought he was doing. Instead, he seated himself, making an effort to at least appear calm, even if he didn't sound like it. Just because Jim often accused him of being unable to deal with Vulcans didn't mean it was true. "Ambassador," he said, "What can I do for you?"

"I was visiting my son," Ambassador Sarek said, perfectly calm. "I wished to ascertain for myself his status, especially given that you reported that his psionic brain activity was unusually, and possibly dangerously high, before you were able to bring it back to acceptable levels."

McCoy relaxed a little. A worried a parent he could deal with, even if the Ambassador wouldn't call it quite that; everyone on the ship had noticed how much time Spock was making to spend time with his father, trying to bridge the gap that McCoy suspected had existed since Spock had joined Starfleet, if not earlier. In the wake of his mother's death, however, McCoy couldn't fault either of them for trying to find a way to coexist in her absence. His face softening, McCoy nodded and said, "Yes. We had to give him sedative to keep the brain activity down, as we didn't think that the influx of information from his psionic abilities would help with his control. We also gave him a second set of sedatives to help regulate his heart rate and breathing, which were also outside the norm for him."

Ambassador Sarek inclined his head, acknowledging McCoy's words. "When do you think he will awaken?"

McCoy pursed his lips, thinking it over. "Probably within another hour or two. I gave him a fairly high dosage of a stronger set of sedative initially because we needed immediate effects, or he was going to injure himself; in all likelihood, he will be sore when he wakes up. However, I've still got him on a milder set of sedatives at the moment that will keep his heart rate and respiration low even when he wakes up, to give him some time to recover. It's what's making him wake up so slowly."

"Thank you, Doctor McCoy. I can see that you are taking sufficient care of my son."

Doctor McCoy started to get a little hot at that, but forced it down. If nothing else, being friends with Spock- however grudging it may have been, some days- had shown him that Vulcans as a whole had a thing for understatement. If Ambassador Sarek had truly found Doctor McCoy's work only mediocre, he would not have made the effort to compliment him in the slightest. Letting out a little sigh, and readjusting his inner translator for 'Vulcan' McCoy said, "It's no problem, really. Spock's…" he hesitated slightly, then went in for broke, wanting Spock's father to understand that he was highly valued on the Enterprise. "He's a good First Officer for this ship. The Captain trusts him, and I do too. He…" McCoy smiled a little. "He uses logic quite effectively." It was even true- though McCoy often disagreed with the man in both his personal and professional capacity, he couldn't fault Spock's ability to use logic to his advantage.

There was, perhaps, the slightest hint of warmth on Ambassador Sarek's face in response, and McCoy was caught up in wondering what sort of Vulcan the ambassador was behind the mask. Sarek had gone out into the universe, working as an ambassador to Earth, a place as chaotic as Vulcan was calm, and had done so willingly. He was even doing so again now, striding back out into the world so unlike his own, taking back up his ambassadorial duties and continuing to work for the good of the greatest number of people he could, organizing aid and relief for Vulcans from his position as ambassador despite the loss of his wife, still so recent a wound. He had married a human, and if his muted and agonized expression in med bay when the Narada had attacked Vulcan had been any indication, he'd loved her. Despite his Vulcan heritage, despite his logic, he'd loved her. McCoy didn't know all the details of Sarek's, of Spock's lives- hell, he didn't want to- but love was something that McCoy could respect.

Love was something he'd always respected.

Something that he always _would_ respect.

And here that same fierce, deep love was again, glowing slightly in Sarek's eyes as they spoke about his son. McCoy knew that the Vulcan was allowing him to see it, for the briefest instance, and nodded, acknowledging it. Then he took a breath, swallowed his pride, reminded himself firmly of what he'd just seen in the older Vulcan and asked, "What do you know about the Vulcan protein by the name of izirin?"

If Sarek wasn't Vulcan, McCoy would have guessed that he'd just given him an enormous surprise. As it was, Sarek stood stock still, eerily still, as though he was a statue more than a creature made of flesh and blood. It made McCoy shudder, just a little. Sarek closed his eyes then, looking for all the world as though he was simply combing through his memory, looking to find the correct answer. If McCoy had to guess, however, he would have said that not only was Sarek considering the answer to his question, but he was considering the implications of the answer to his question, considering how much information to give, considering why McCoy might need the information.

McCoy sighed, and this time it was in frustration, wishing that the bloody Vulcans would trust any doctor but their own at least _once_. Even M'Benga was just barely considered to be trustworthy. "Your son has about two hundred parts of izirin in his system for every half liter of his blood. I am his doctor. This is critical medical information that I need as soon as possible. I give you my word as a doctor that unless it is a matter of life and death, I will respect both your and Spock's privacy in this matter. However, I _need_ to know what I'm dealing with if I'm going to be able to help Spock."

Sarek stared at him, eyes both dark and intense, and McCoy spent half a minute wondering if Vulcans could read intentions without touching. Feeling supremely ridiculous, he tried to project all the trustworthiness he could towards the elder man, trying to convince him without words as to the depth of his conviction; McCoy would rather die than allow the confidentiality of his patients to be broken, and he genuinely wanted to help Spock through this and take away the pain the izirin had caused.

Sarek looked at him sharply, and McCoy was reminded of the stares that his own father had once aimed in his direction, the one that said, _I know what you're up to, boy, and if you get away with it, it's because I let you, not because of your own cleverness._

Aloud, however, Sarek only said in a mild tone, "There is no need to shout."

McCoy stared at him, shocked for a second that it had worked at all, and then very, very slowly smiled. "Well?" he asked. "Are you going to tell me what I need to know?" He waved a hand at the seat opposite his desk, indicating that if he wanted too, Sarek could sit down.

McCoy waited with baited breath for a moment, wondering what Sarek would do.

With his customary grace, Sarek took the seat opposite him, showing absolutely nothing on his face.

Grinning in victory, and completely unabashed about that fact, McCoy demanded, "So? What is izirin?"

"It is, Doctor McCoy, a protein that has not been seen on Vulcan for the better part of nearly a thousand years."

"Gee, that's helpful."

Sarek sent McCoy a reproachful look that had the doctor flushing. "Sorry."

"As I was saying, izirin hasn't been seen in Vulcan blood for nearly a thousand years, because its use was not needed after the time of Surak, with the exception of very few cases. During the times when Vulcan was still a warrior's land, one of the things that was used to attack opposing clans was not only physical prowess, but mental as well. Stronger minds would brutalize weaker ones, forcing their control on others. As a defense from the outside pressure, izirin was produced to protect the mind, working to help shield the psionic effects of the attack by partially blocking the receptors. Much like a fever, though it can be useful, izirin can result in dangerous physiological responses in Vulcans, initially indicated by shortness of breath or trouble controlling their emotions. Usually izirin production has to consistent for an hour before it produces the increased heart rate and brain activity, but it seems that Spock is more susceptible to izirin's negative effects than a full Vulcan would be. An izirin response only occurs when the mind touch is forced, however. A proper meld results in no protein production, because it is accepted by both parties, and thus not considered to be an invasion. The last time it was seen in Vulcan blood was when we encountered the Betazoids; we were unused to the manner in which they connected to one another telepathically, and our bodies reacted as though were under attack, despite their peaceable intentions. Since that matter has been resolved, izirin has not been produced in such large quantities in any individual."

McCoy felt his eyes grow bigger with each word that came out of Sarek's mouth. "Wow," he finally said, when the Vulcan had finished speaking. "I…thank you." He met Sarek's eyes evenly, and then said for a second time, "Thank you. Not only will that help me work to limit the production of izirin, hopefully resulting in waking Spock sooner and helping him regain control, but you may have just given us critical information, if we work under the assumption that sentient life kidnapped Jim. If they have the same abilities, or even similar abilities that elicited such a response, we won't be sending people down to that planet to get their heads rearranged without their knowledge."

Sarek inclined his head. "Again, I would ask that you be selective as to how you share this information."

McCoy nodded his understanding. He could think of a dozen ways off the top of his head that izirin could be used to the disadvantage of the Vulcan species, especially since the production of the drug induced the same physiological symptoms in other Vulcans that it had in Spock, even if at a slower pace. "I'll only tell Acting Captain Sulu; he can determine how the information should be passed to the members of Security that will be headed down to the planet. Firstly, I do warn you though, that by the end of this trip, it's likely that a good portion of the Enterprise will know roughly what the protein does, if not exactly how it works. Secondly, if you go over the pathway with me, I can work on developing something that might help Spock in the future, create a protein that mimics izirin without his heart and brain activity going into overdrive under the onslaught, or something preventative even, that he can take as a precaution before going down to planets to make first contact or when interacting with telepathic species. I give you my word that any information on the pathway and the exact development of the drug will not be shared with anyone but those that you authorize; for example, Doctor M'Benga studied medicine on Vulcan and is more familiar with Vulcan physiology, and thus would be able a great help in figuring out a solution. Besides Spock, I doubt I've seen more than six or seven patients who were Vulcan, and thus don't feel comfortable doing all the research on my own." He waited for Sarek to incline his head at McCoy's words before he continued, "I do have one thing I'd like to know, if you have the answer- does izirin production interfere with his own ability to use touch telepathy or mind melds?"

Sarek hesitated for the barest instant. "I am unsure. There has never been an effort to find out what the effect would be, as Spock is the only half-Human, half-Vulcan hybrid currently in existence. If a Vulcan is experiencing the effects of izirin, it has been observed that their mental abilities, while slowed, are not stopped. For example, under the effect of izirin, I would be able to meld with you, doctor, and while it would take me longer than normal to achieve a full meld, once the meld itself was in place, things would operate normally. Our touch telepathy, however, is considerably more muted under the effect of izirin. While normally when touching we can catch ideas, partial thoughts, intentions and the like, when under the influence of izirin, we can sense emotions only, and even they are weaker than normal."

McCoy nodded, absently tapping on his PADD with his stylus even as he filed the information away in his mind. He mused over it for a long moment. "Alright. Once Spock wakes up, we'll talk to him about this, try and see what he sensed when he was under attack. That will give us a better idea of the relative strength of our enemies." McCoy stopped tapping his PADD with the stylus and began spinning it absently between his fingers in a show of dexterity.

Sarek inclined his head for a moment. "If you are willing to bring up the relevant data, I would be willing to show you the exact signaling pathway and secretory pathway of izirin, as well as how izirin functions once it had bonded to the psionic receptors."

McCoy smiled a little. "Do you mind going with me to the lab? I'll be able to project the appropriate vids better from there. Are you going to need access to any texts?"

The Ambassador nodded. "I can gain access to the appropriate Vulcan files from my PADD and send them to yours, as it had been many years since I studied biochemistry and I am unwilling to accidentally impart untrue information, and giving you access to the texts will allow you to do research in the future. I will retrieve my PADD and join you in your labs."

"Sure. I'll let my nurse, Christine Chapel know what we're doing, and bring M'Benga to the lab so he can help us out." McCoy hesitated for a moment, waiting for the ambassador's permission to bring in the two people he trusted most in medical. When Sarek once more inclined his head in agreement, McCoy continued, "I'll also let Sulu know what we're up to, and tell my doctors and nurses to keep an eye out on Spock, since I'll want to be there as soon as he wakes up, to make sure that there are no lingering effects from the izirin. We can use my personal lab for our work- normally I just use it when we've got an influx of people running in and out of the labs, but there should be enough room for us to all fit in there and work."

They parted ways for perhaps half an hour before Nurse Chapel, Doctor M'Benga, McCoy and Sarek met in McCoy's personal lab. The small room connected to his office that wasn't used for much more than McCoy's private projects, the things that didn't need true lab space, but were mostly projects of different phenomenon that McCoy found interesting and potentially useful but weren't important in an immediate sense. It was as crowded as McCoy had suspected it would be when they had all gathered, but it wasn't too tight a fit. Using the private lab would prevent anyone else from investigating, however. People entered McCoy's office at their own risk, and they entered McCoy's personal lab on pain of death.

Once they were all gathered, Sarek immediately brought up the files he needed, projecting the relevant vid from his PADD, blowing up different parts of the three dimensional image to examine it in more detail as needed. They gathered around, listening as Sarek took on the tone of a lecturer, explaining about izirin production, as well as pathway and secretion, listening to their questions and referencing them to some papers that had been written when he didn't know the answer himself. McCoy had to admit that though Sarek hadn't been fully trained in biochemistry and molecular biology, the Ambassador had been through basic training and studies in both topics as part of his time spent in the Vulcan Science Academy and it showed. He spoke clearly and concisely, explaining every aspect with the perfect amount of detail before moving onto the next subject, making sure they understood everything adequately before proceeding to the next part.

Two hours passed that way easily, McCoy, M'Benga, and Chapel absorbing the information that Sarek imparted with the ease of long practice, asking as many questions as they could to get a feel for what was happening. They weren't more than halfway through how the izirin impaired the psionic receptors however, when a cautious hand knocked on the door of McCoy's office. He frowned a little, holding up a hand to stop Sarek's lecture. Everyone paused.

"What?" He called out, stepping past the other people in his lab in order to peek out the lab door at whoever was knocking on his office door. He knew there was a scowl growing on his face at the interrupted mock lecture, but he couldn't quite stop it.

It was Doctor Invidia, her head stuck around the door of the office. She had her hand raised and looked about to knock on the door again. "Doctor McCoy!" she exclaimed, ignoring the frown on the CMO's face. "First Officer Spock is awake!"

Immediately McCoy darted out of the office, snatching a tricorder from off his desk even as he called the news over his shoulder. Sarek was on his heels as he walked to the biobed that Spock lay on, managing to keep past with the doctor's near run without seeming hurried.

Spock was blinking blearily on the biobed, expression unfocused. There was a flurry of activity around his biobed for a few moments as they removed his IV bag, running the tricorder over his body to make sure that his vitals were staying low. McCoy waved all the various medical personnel away and they scattered on his command, heading back to their regular duties.

Spock was just sitting up, hand rising almost immediately to his head. Just the very fact that the motion was involuntary told Doctor McCoy how bad his head must be aching. "Head?" McCoy said sympathetically.

Spock made a small noise, not quite an agreement but not a refusal either. McCoy took a hypo out of the cabinet, loading it with a pain reliever, and injected Spock without ceremony. Fifteen seconds passed before the tightness in Spock's face eased. McCoy ran the tricorder over Spock's body again relieved when his heart rate and breathing stayed calm. Spock sat up fully in on the bed, hand dropping away from his forehead as he focused his attention on McCoy.

"If you feel any pain despite the pain reliever, tell me, because that could be a signal of muscle bruising that goes down to the bone. You're going to feel somewhat achy for a while, because your heart was going close to four hundred beats per minute when I got to you, and any liquid being pumped that fast is going to do some damage. What's the last thing you remember?"

Spock thought for a moment and then said slowly, "The last thing I recall was attempting to warn the Captain about what I'd been sensing."

McCoy waited for him to continue, then realized he had only asked for the last thing Spock had remembered. He rolled his eyes. "Warn him about what?"

Spock's expression went perfectly neutral, which McCoy knew well enough to recognize that he was trying to hide his worry and fear. "I am not entirely sure. When I first beamed down to the planet, I had assumed the cause for my shortness of breath was the increase in oxygen, but quickly became aware of feelings."

"Feelings?" McCoy prompted.

Spock nodded once. "I could sense feelings being projected, and followed them to the tree, the one that was colored differently from the surrounding trees. As I did so, the emotions increased in both strength and pressure. I sensed fear, anxiety and confusion, as well as burgeoning panic. I thought at first that it might have been the trees themselves that were sentient, but the feelings weren't emanating from the plant life, but instead from…under it, to a certain extent. However, I found myself reacting to the increase in the strength of the emotions, my pulse and breathing rate increasing."

McCoy turned Spock's words over, before saying, "That pretty much confirms that we've got some sort of telepathic life existing on this planet." At Spock's glance in his direction, the doctor explained in detail the events of the last few hours, including the Captain's disappearance. Sulu came in during the middle of the explanation, Nurse Chapel having alerted him as to the change in Spock's condition, and he added in the information that McCoy had missed.

It took the pair of them the better part of an hour to explain to the rapt audience of Spock and Sarek what had been going on since they beamed up from the planet, discussing their assumptions and conclusions based on the events.

"I agree," Spock finally said when they'd finished speaking. "It seems a reasonable conclusion that based on my own experiences and the production of izirin that there is some sort of sentient, telepathic race on the planet that has presumably taken our Captain for unknown reasons. Mr. Sulu, if I may once more take command?"

"Woah, excuse me!" Doctor McCoy interrupted, crossing his arms across his chest. "I have to clear you for duty before you can step in as Acting Captain! And until I'm sure that the izirin and the sedatives that I gave you are cleared from your system, your ass isn't going anywhere! Now sit down and let me run the rest of my tests!"

Spock looked about to protest, but caught sight of his father. His mouth thinned ever so slightly, imperceptible on anyone else but as good as a pout for the half-Vulcan. McCoy snorted, unmoved by the display. Spock sat waiting with no small amount of patience while McCoy ran every conceivable test he could think of on the half-Vulcan, before grudgingly releasing him from medical care to take over the Enterprise.

Spock stood upon the completion of the last test, calling Sulu over to take formal command of the Enterprise as its Acting Captain. He then made brief farewells to both McCoy and Sarek, instructing the former to continue his research on izirin- McCoy suspected because he wanted to use any developments that were made to protect himself when he beamed back down to the planet- and requesting that Sarek continue to help the team.

With his customary Vulcan poise, Sarek agreed, saying in a tone that was perhaps the slightest bit dry, "I have no other pressing plans for the afternoon, and the recovery of your Captain is certainly a worthy cause."

McCoy almost barked out a laugh at that, though Spock didn't react. Instead, he thanked his father for his help, ordered McCoy to keep him updated and informed him that Spock planned to have a search party sent down to retrieve the Captain within the next twenty four hours, depending on what information had been gleaned from the scans. Then Spock and Sulu were off, already discussing their plans to retrieve the Captain.

"Doctor," Sarek intoned. "Shall we return to our work?"

McCoy blinked once, realizing that he'd been staring after Spock. He'd notice a hint of emotion in Spock's voice as he'd spoken about Captain Kirk's recovery, something that McCoy didn't think would ever happen at all, let alone in front of his father. Sarek, too, glanced in the direction his son had gone with an inscrutable look on his face. McCoy tried to recall the exact timber of Spock's voice, trying to discern the emotion in it, but stopped himself. Worrying about Spock's emotions wouldn't get Jim off that god-forsaken planet, where the aliens were doing who knew what to his brain. Knowing his luck, they were probably re-arranging it to suit their tastes.

"Doctor," Sarek said a second time, sounding just a touch sharper.

McCoy glanced at him, flapping a hand. "Yeah, yeah, just gimme a minute and I'll head back in there."

Sarek studied the doctor and made a polite sound of agreement, disappearing into his office.

McCoy spent another long moment staring after Spock, wondering what the hell was going on.

Then he went back to work.

* * *

TBC


	6. Chapter 5

Sorry for the long wait, but between school finishing and vacations and you know...real life in general, I've been a little pressed for time. Never fear, however, because here is the next installment of Marchin On!

* * *

**Chapter 5: There Isn't a Flag I'd Wave**

* * *

Martial law was not easy to live under, Jimmy found.

No groups of more than five people were allowed to assemble. Guards wandered all the cities to enforce the law. Food was being strictly rationed; food stamps were sent out to the colonists weekly, and depending on their familial status- single, married, family with children- they were given careful portions of various foods to last them the week. Those who stole or attempted to steal food were shot on sight. Those who were caught creating food stamps were beaten. Any protests about the soldiers' behavior was ignored, and usually the men and women were vindictive enough to find some imagined offense to punish the offender with. The entire planet was on the cusp of being uncivilized, and no one seemed to be able to control it.

Not that anyone dared to, of course. Even Jimmy didn't dare say what he was thinking aloud- that Kodos had finally shown his true colors. Though he seemed to be a kindly and well-meaning gentleman, he made no efforts to stop the men and women under his command from doing as they pleased. There was a wildness to people's eyes now, a sort of animalistic quality that had Jimmy avoiding everyone's gaze, half wondering if he looked as wild to them as they did to him. Even in the face of all that however, Jimmy didn't dare speak his thoughts aloud.

Because if he did, he would likely disappear too.

Not that anything could be proven, of course- especially during the time that everyone was rioting. Two hundred people were confirmed dead, that was true, from the thieves and guards and mobs, but another three hundred people were missing.

Just…missing.

Gone.

And it wasn't like there was anywhere for them to go. Tarsus IV didn't have warp capable ships, so it wasn't like even if they stole the ships they would be able to go anywhere in a reasonable amount of time; they would get faster relief if they just waited for Starfleet to respond. Besides, even if they _had_ stolen the ships someone would have noticed; the ships were heavily guarded both with man power and with technological security, and had been even before the famine. Any theft would have been plastered all over the newsfeeds. It was unlikely that the missing people gone to another city, either, since the situation wasn't any better there. It was equally unlikely that they were simply out in the wilderness, surviving on their own. Not that the terrain was particularly hostile, but it simply wouldn't make sense- why give up the chance that the scientists would be able to resolve the issue or that Starfleet would respond earlier than expected?

Even more than the fact that it didn't make sense to disappear, Jimmy couldn't help but shudder because of _who_ had been reported missing.

The elderly.

The lame.

The two people that Jimmy knew- that everyone knew- would be the least likely to survive the famine. Literally anyone over the age of sixty or so- or whatever the species' equivalent was- and anyone who was in some way unable to physically bring aid or help the others in the community had disappeared either during or within two days of the rioting.

There was no way to confirm, no way to tell for sure, but everyone had their suspicions about what had happened. It was hard to be sure, however; the elderly and the lame were also the least able to get away from the mobs, from the rioting. In fact, nearly ninety percent of the victims that had been found had been either elderly or lame as well. Even so, simply the fact that no one had been able to find the bodies, or had been able to identify the bodies was enough to make most people uncomfortable. Though the theories differed, the one thing that everyone agreed on was that it couldn't be good.

Yet so far no one had raised a voice in protest. They didn't quite dare- it was one thing to have suspicions, and quite another to accuse a man of essentially murdering his colonists. And if he had done it, how could he have possibly gotten rid of all the bodies? There were simply too many unanswered questions for anyone to be able to say anything.

Even so, Jimmy made the journey to the labs each day with trepidation. They were located near the edge of Kodos's grounds, an enormous and well stocked complex. Kodos had asked the geniuses in his Colony Outreach Program to help work on solving the problems the colony faced. About half the members of this year's program had some sort of background in biochemistry, organic chemistry, math, cellular physiology, engineering and the like. Jimmy had been assigned to a group working on re-creating replicator technology based some of the partial designs that were in the databank. Big J, Karrin, O'las, Savik, Memeki, Gretchen, Yana, Roshaun and Ebenezer were all working to ease the effects of the famine in some shape, way, or form.

It seemed as if the colonists were heedless of that fact, however. In the last two days, six of the scientists and their families had been killed in their homes. They had been brutal, bloody affairs, without cause or reason. Since the murderers were still at large, Kodos had insisted that his guards escort all the scientists to the facility with their personal belongings; they were to remain either in the facility or the rooms that Kodos was giving them for the duration, so as to prevent the scientists from being killed and ending their ability to do the critical work.

Jimmy swallowed, eyeing the guards around him with a certain anxiety. He knew they were there for his own protection, but they were huge, hulking men that could probably flatten Big J with a couple of blows, let alone Jimmy's own increasingly skinny frame, or that of the others that were being herded along. He watched them warily the entire trip, making sure they didn't come too close. He knew that he was acting ridiculously skittish, but couldn't help his response to the sheer strength present in the frames of the men and women around him, a strength that far exceeded his own. Though they hadn't behaved in the least threateningly- the one guard had even told Memeki and Karrin that he would hold their things, if they desired- Jimmy couldn't help but recall the brutalities that had been committed in the various settlements, the rumors that were still flying around.

But Jimmy never gave up, never surrendered- not to Frank, not to his mother, not to the aching hole his father left and sure as hell not to these goons that didn't have so much as two brain cells to rub together. So Jimmy scowled the entire trip to Kodos's residence, scowled as the guards directed both the other scientists and the kid geniuses to their rooms in a sort of elegant organized chaos. He even managed to scowl through the better part of the meager meal that they were all served and the idle chatter that came with it- some sort of bluish corn, chicken, and sheesh, a sort of starch product from Andoria. Simple, plain fare.

The next two days didn't do much to improve Jimmy's mood. Not only had he hit a roadblock in the replicator equations that neither he nor the other scientists on the project had been able to resolve, but Kodos had been by to visit every day. He'd lurked in the corner, claiming that he simply wanted to observe genius at work. Jimmy could feel his eyes on him, and just barely resisted the urge to either say something about it or attempt to escape to his room. There was a weight and sense of ownership to Kodos's gaze that made Jimmy sick to his stomach.

Jimmy breathed out a long sigh of relief after Kodos was gone both days. The second time, a young, pretty scientist by the name of Dr. Ingrid Smith laughed lightly at his response. Jimmy gazed at her in appreciation; she had dark hair, dark skin, dark eyes and a brilliant white smile. Like with Dr. Jameson, he had the strangest feeling that he knew her from somewhere, felt like he shouldn't be calling her by her first name as she had instructed him when they'd first met.

"If you want to get into the scientific field, you better get used to having your boss looking over your shoulder," she teased with a smile. "Everything is about results."

Jimmy returned her smile half-heartedly. How had Ingrid not seen the darkness in Kodos's gaze, the presence of a man who had been pushed to the edge- and possibly over it, if the rumors that were growing every day were any indication? Kodos's smile had been predatory, cool. It hadn't been quite lustful as he'd gazed as Jimmy, at least, he didn't think so, but there was something _wrong_, completely and utterly _wrong_ about him. It was clear that Ingrid hadn't seen it at all, didn't even have an inkling of what Jimmy had seen. It made Jimmy doubt himself, wonder if he was just projecting his emotions onto the governor, seeing his own inner torment about the situation playing out across Kodos's face.

So Jimmy kept his mouth shut, and continued to work, hoping it would keep his mind off of Kodos's dark eyes.

He was done for the day, feeling a sort of creeping exhaustion flowing through his body when he heard a knock at the door. He frowned for a moment, wondering who would be knocking at his door this late. As he was walking over, he heard the rhythmic _thunk thunk thunk_ that he'd heard a thousand times. It was Memeki, shifting her weight from one set of legs to the other, something she always did when she was nervous.

"Yeah?" Jimmy asked as he pulled the door open. "What's up, Memeki?"

Her dark eyes gazed at him in supplication. "I forgot!" she moaned, shifting her weight even faster now. "I forgot my scroll!"

Jimmy immediately sighed, exhaustion making his limbs feel even heavier. "Memeki, how could you have forgotten your book? Didn't Abby say like, four times to check that you had everything with you before we left?"

It was the wrong thing to say. Memeki's species wasn't able to produce tears, Jimmy knew that, but somehow she managed to make her large, dark eyes go glassy, her mandibles tightening. "I know!" she replied in a quavering tone, voice thick with embarrassment and worry. "But my dapi gave it to me! I hid it under my bed for safekeeping, and I left it there!"

Jimmy couldn't help the slightly petulant tone to his voice. "So why don't you tell Big J, or one of the guards or something?"

Memeki's quavering tone got worse, and Jimmy felt like a complete jerk. "Big J is still working, so are Yana and Gretchen and the others! I can't go to them. And I don't wanna go to the guards! I'm scared! I just want my scroll. Please, Jimmy, can you go get it? _Please_?" Memeki stared up at him, dark gaze sorrowful and anxious. "Please, I don't trust the guards. They'll do something to it, or steal it, and my dapi gave it to me. Please, Jimmy, _please_!"

"You can't just wait until tomorrow? Maybe Abby can bring it over."

Jimmy's words didn't move Memeki at all. "I already tried calling her." Now slow, shuddering heaves were wracking her body, and Jimmy knew they had to be the equivalent of tears, and felt himself caving. "Please, Jimmy, something could happen to it if I wait until tomorrow. Please, please, _please_."

Jimmy let out a long breath, a headache beginning to pound behind his eyes. He wanted nothing more than to close his eyes and listen to some music for a while, to do anything but move. Somehow staring at numbers all day, revising set after set of equations was more taxing than being out in the sun, hanging out with friends and running around. A small part of him was pleased, glad that Memeki trusted him enough to ask such a favor of him. Jimmy ran a hand through his hair, tousling the gold locks, tapping his foot absently while Memeki gazed up at him, hope in her eyes.

"Dammit," Jimmy finally growled. "Memeki, you owe me one. I'll run down to the program's building and see if I can snag the scroll from your room. Hopefully Abby's still awake to let me in. I'm not making any promises though, alright?"

"That's fine!" Memeki said fervently. "Thank you, Jimmy, thank you!"

Her arms wrapped around him tightly for a long minute, nearly squeezing the breath out of him before she let go of him and headed back down the hallway to her room. Jimmy rubbed at his face, eyes burning. "How do I get myself into these things," he grumbled as he closed the door to put his jeans and his jacket back on. Actually, he did know how. He was always a pushover when people genuinely asked for his help, wanting to give others the support he'd sorely missed during his childhood. He cursed under his breath, feeling like a ridiculous sap.

He made his way out silently, slipping past the occasional guard. The scientists were still in the labs or asleep, worn out from the day's work, and the guards were too busy making sure the settlements didn't begin rioting again to pay attention to Jimmy's slim figure; the governor's house was nearly empty. Even so, Jimmy didn't get the feeling his return to the program house would be easily accepted, but he'd told Memeki he'd go and wasn't interested in being forced to break the promise. Therefore, he was exceptionally careful to avoid being caught, taking the winding path to the edges of Kodos's property that was almost never used and then cutting down towards the house. It only added an extra fifteen or so minutes to the journey, but kept him out of sight of the governor's house, mostly behinds the large bushes and trees that lined so many of the paths. Twilight had completely spread against the sky, and by the time Jimmy actually reached the program house, it was pitch black.

He shivered, his coat not quite warm enough in the fall chill that had been taking over the planet for the last few weeks. Maybe Abby would have something he could borrow; he could always return it to her later when he had the chance. As he came around the ridge, however, phaser fire rang from the program house.

Jimmy froze for a pair of heartbeats that seemed to stretch on forever.

Then he was off, darting forward through the underbrush heedless of the scratches he was getting as the branches smacked his arms, his face. He nearly stumbled several times over rocks and old tree stumps that he couldn't see, but his entire focus was on what he was hearing. His own breath, harsh and ragged already with fear and exertion, and constant whine of phasers. There were shouts too, which sounded almost flat in the dark, omni-directional and full of pain and worry. Jimmy ran a little faster at that, breath wheezing in and out of him.

He barreled down the hill, towards where he could hear at least three phasers shooting blast after blast, each impact throwing up a shower of sparks. When each blast hit, whether it was the wall of the house or something else, the cries rose again briefly, gaining a level of fear that had Jimmy running a little bit swifter. He came careening down the hill, knocking aside the branches that got in his way. He saw a figure racing towards him.

It was Abby, holding Ianto in her arms.

One of the guards stopped, at the base of the hill, and Jimmy froze in the bushes, heart fluttering, going absolutely still as he wondered for a breathless moment if this was it, if he was about to be captured and killed. Horror welled up in him, making him breathless, and it wasn't until he saw the spray of blood, black in the night, that he realized that the guard hadn't seen him yet, that he hadn't be aiming for Jimmy.

He'd been aiming for Abby.

The spray of blood also told him that the guard wasn't using the normal phaser, but something else, something that did massive damage- enough damage that when hit, Abby's arm looked like it had been mostly torn off, a big, gaping wound that turned the left half of her body scarlet. Ianto let out a shriek, a wild, terrible thing, but from Jimmy's vantage point, he couldn't tell if the younger boy had been hit.

Despite her wound, Abby kept moving forward with almost shocking speed. Somehow, her clever eyes located Jimmy, hidden in the shadows. She let out a hoarse cry, moving even faster even as her body began losing blood faster in response to the increased pace, attempting to outrace the guard who was starting up the slope behind her, lazy smile on her face, for she knew her prey was dying. Abby didn't so much as look back, thundering through the bushes and trees, each step leaving a bloody footprint, every iota of her being focused completely on Jimmy. For his part, Jimmy stood frozen in shock, rooted in the tiny niche where he'd stopped, leaves and shadows hiding his form from view, transfixed by the horror that was playing out in front of him.

"Abby?" he croaked, and his voice nearly failed him.

Abby just kept running towards him, face growing alarmingly pale, blood spurting from the ruin of her left arm. Ianto continued to shriek, drowning out any response that Abby might have made. Jimmy was careful to stay in the shadows, ghosting towards the wounded woman, freezing if he thought he saw the guard so much as glance in his direction.

It was no more than a minute or two before Abby disappeared into the same set of shadows that Jimmy was in, immediately collapsing with a cry of pain. Ianto shut up, eyes enormous and uncomprehending. He pulled himself out from under Abby's body, entire body trembling as he scrambled away. Jimmy placed a hand on Ianto's shoulder, and the boy started, looking frightened. Jimmy ignored him for the moment, moving past him and towards Abby, gently turning her over.

"Abby?" He whispered, heart thundering. Her breathing was almost nonexistent, the shallowest rise and fall of her chest. A black puddle was spreading beneath her, and though Jimmy knew the human body contained about five and a half liters of blood in it, it looked like more, so much more under the shimmer of the moon and stars. At his words, Abby stirred weakly, blood leaking out of her nose. Her breath began to rattle in her chest, and Jimmy just barely resisted the urge to yank his hands off of her and run, run away from her and from this and just forget, because thirteen year old boys weren't supposed to see someone who had shown them kindness bleeding out on the ground.

Then he glanced at Ianto's shaking body and his mouth tightened.

"What happened?" he said in an undertone, expecting any moment for the guard to come bursting from the shadows and kill both him and Ianto.

"Came after us. Told me…told me I could live. But…I couldn't…give…" Abby gasped, voice thin and quavering. Her mouth moved several times, and the face that Jimmy had always considered to be simply matronly now looked indescribably ancient and fragile. Abby's mouth moved but produced no sound. She coughed, blood splattering her face, a few flecks landing on Jimmy's face. He jerked back and nearly left her, but couldn't. She had died to save Ianto.

"It's okay, Abby," he soothed, and his voice was too calm. He knew that, knew his voice sounded wrong, and also knew that there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it. "Ianto's here, and I'll keep him safe. You got him out, Abby. I promise he'll be alright. It's okay, Abby." Mindless platitudes poured out of Jimmy's mouth in that same distant tone. He dimly noted that a drop of the blood that Abby had coughed up was sliding down her cheek.

Abby's eyes looked past Jimmy's face somehow, though, despite his effort to reassure her. Jimmy began to panic, unsure of what to do. "Abby, Abby, stay with me. What happened? Who sent those people!" He demanded, knowing his voice was getting too loud. He couldn't stop himself from shaking Abby, like this was her fault, like somehow she had done this to him on purpose. " You have to be okay! You have to! Please!" Now that damn burst, at least partially, and he started to sob, burying his face in Abby's chest. She'd been kind to him, treating him like an adult for the most part, not just a worthless kid. She'd tried to help them, tried to get them all to get along.

And Jimmy had taken no more notice of her than he had of a wall fixture.

"Keep…safe."

Abby died.

Jimmy stared at the body that had housed the woman who'd been kind to him, and inhaled a shuddering breath, that cold and distance snapping back into place as if his outburst had never happened at all. "Come on," he said to Ianto.

Ianto stared at him for a moment, and Jimmy knew he probably looked like a nightmare, scratches on his face and arms, blank eyes, the blood from Abby's body covering the front of his shirt and his face like war paint. He stared at his own hands, blood already crusting over in dark globs. With an empty smile, he rubbed his hands against his jeans, hating the way they immediately made his pants feel tacky. "Come on, we have to leave," he said in a stronger tone, but it still had that haunting chill.

Ianto refused to let Jimmy touch him, but followed him easily enough. They didn't dare talk, though, moving through the darkness as if they were shades, careful to avoid even the slightest hint of sentient life for fear that they would be discovered and killed with the same brutality that had characterized Abby's death.

When Jimmy had left Kodos's house, he'd thought the governor a fool for keeping such low security around the house. Now he was grateful, because it made their entrance that much quicker. They slipped past the guards and biometric sensors without a single pause, and Jimmy ushered Ianto into his room before shutting the door.

Jimmy looked at his bed, the pajamas he'd discarded when Memeki has asked for his help, his PADD, his belongings, the things that had seemed so ordinary when he'd left, but now looked like they belonged in another galaxy. He moved as if in a dream, stripping off his clothes and throwing them in a corner where he wouldn't have to acknowledge they existed. He showered, then, careful not to look in a mirror, careful to not look at the pink water under his feet. He scrubbed until he was an unhealthy red, his skin as raw as his nerves and soul.

When he got out, he just felt…empty. He could see what he had to do stretched in front of him like a line: He needed to get the full story from Ianto, tell the others what happened, and figure out how to get out of here, away from Kodos.

Because he had undoubtedly ordered their murder.

The thought send Jimmy into a screaming rage, and he punched the wall, hard, letting out a sound that was purely bestial. He screamed every curse word he knew, though it never quite progressed to insults to Kodos. As far gone as he was, Jimmy wasn't stupid, so he kept his ranting general. Pain swelled in his heart, threatening to choke him.

Or perhaps it was just the sobs.

He didn't realize the racket would bring the others however, and Big J was pounding on the door within minutes. Ianto must have let him in, because Jimmy hadn't even heard it over his own screams.

He definitely noticed when Big J entered the room, however, because those enormous, powerful arms wrapped around him, preventing him from moving, and one large hand clapped over his mouth. Jimmy had just enough presence of mind not to bite the hand out of instinct.

"What are you doing, fool boy?" Big J hissed into his ear, sounding furious. He stiffened in Big J's arms, struggling to get free, to bite, to punch, to kick, anything to prevent him from thinking about it. Jimmy was half of Big J's weight and half his size, however, and he didn't get very far before he sagged in his friends arms, going completely limp as he began crying in earnest. Another set of wails joined his, but Jimmy barely noticed it when Ianto crawled into Big J's arms too.

It's not possible to cry forever, though. Eventually they had both run out of tears for the moment, lying in Big J's arms completely lax despite the fact that they were sitting on the bathroom floor with a giant hole in the wall above them from Jimmy's attack. Big J just ran his hands through their hair, lulling them towards sleep.

"Jimmy, what happened?" Big J finally dared to ask. "Why is Ianto here?" His hands kept up the steady motion through their hair. Even if he hadn't, however, Jimmy was still too numb to react any further. "Actually, wait, lemme get some stuff to take care of your hands first."

Exhausted, Jimmy looked at his hands, noting that the knuckles were bloody and swollen, and if the pain was anything to go by, cracked at the very least, but Jimmy hadn't noticed. "Okay," he murmured. He followed Big J back out into the main room, taking the opportunity to pull on some pants while Big J carefully sat Ianto down on the bed. The elder boy then returned briefly to his own quarters before returning with a dermal regenerator and some gauze while Jimmy examined his hands.

"Where did you get that?" Jimmy asked with some surprise when he saw what the other boy had gone to fetch.

Big J shrugged a little. "It never hurts to be prepared," he murmured, and then set to work healing Jimmy's injuries to the best of his ability. It was the better part of twenty minutes before Big J was satisfied, and Jimmy's hands looked rather like a mummy's, they were so heavily wrapped in gauze. Jimmy made a sound of irritation, but Big J was not placated. "Better safe than sorry. Infection can do nasty things."

There was a darkness in his tone that made Jimmy believe it.

"So what happened?" Big J asked again.

Jimmy, who had successfully been pretending the events of earlier in the evening hadn't actually happened, blanched. He swallowed, looking at Ianto. The boy had fallen asleep, curled up on Jimmy's covers, looking too small. Jimmy knew it was selfish of him, but he shook Ianto awake, unable to face telling the truth of the matter by himself. _I don't know the entire story,_ he justified in his head, but it didn't make him feel any better.

Ianto let out a little cry as his awoke, huddling under the covers. Big J wiped at Ianto's cheeks with a piece of cloth that he had wet, and Jimmy wondered when he'd gone to the bathroom to do so. "Shhh," Big J soothed, quieting the boy. "Come on now, the both of you, tell me what's happened." The older boy was beginning to look as ill as Jimmy felt, imagining the worst thing that could have happened.

Jimmy didn't want to speak, didn't want to shatter Big J's illusion that whatever he was thinking could be the worst possible scenario, but he couldn't stand to be alone any more either. He needed someone to fix everything.

So he told Big J what happened, Ianto's tiny voice filling in the details, until the picture they'd painted was so bloody and horrific that Big J had to stop them just as they told him of Abby's death so he could go to the bathroom. Jimmy could hear him vomiting, and though he didn't blame him, it somehow made the little twisted portion of him happy, because at least he hadn't thrown up, and he'd seen the body. He immediately felt guilty about thinking it, but he couldn't help it.

The water ran for a few moments, and Big J came out wiping at his mouth. Jimmy couldn't look at him, but a warm cloth was shoved in his face. It was only then that Jimmy realized he'd been crying silent tears for the entire conversation. He hadn't even noticed. "And then we came back here," he finished, throat sounding dry to his ears.

Big J was silent for a long time, long enough that Ianto fell asleep and Jimmy was feeling pretty drowsy himself, desperate for the oblivion of sleep.

"Jimmy," Big J sighed, "This ain't good."

Jimmy let out a startled, if mocking, laugh at that. "Tell me something I don't know," he returned, and if he sounded a little more bitter than he should, Big J would understand.

Big J looked pale in the darkness. "Listen, I've got to tell the others what happened. If what Ianto says is true, and Kodos really sent his people to kill the Colony Outreach Program members that weren't actively helping…" he trailed off, and swallowed heard, the sound clicking loudly in the near silent room. "Look, I'll tell the others. If he killed them, we're probably next on the list. We've got to get out of here ASAP, alright? You get some rest, if you can. I'll get everyone up and tell them what happened, and we'll make some plans over the next couple of days to get out of here, alright? Maybe we'll be able to disappear in one of the cities until Starfleet gets here." Big J licked his lips, and Jimmy was struck by how off balance Big J seemed, how worried and afraid.

"Yeah." Jimmy murmured. He was silent as Big J tucked him in next to Ianto absently, brushing back his hair before leaving the room.

Though Jimmy's eyes burned for sleep, though he was so unimaginably tired, he found himself unable to completely fall asleep. Instead, he teetered on the edge, shifting back and forth, though careful not to disturb Ianto. Daniel's face kept staring out at him from the darkness, his excitement for language and linguistics practically visible. Nawat and his simple, pure interest in art, his sculptures that even Jimmy could tell were something special, expressing movement without movement. Andrelinna, whose talents lay in architecture, on being able to make the images she saw in her mind come to life. Deshtom had simpler interests; unlike the others, he didn't have a particular talent, but had confided in Jimmy just the other day that he liked medicine most of all, because you had to be good at a lot of things, to understand how things are interconnected, and because medicine would let him help people. Gim and Gam and their innate understanding of psychology, successfully drawing parallels between the mind sets of entirely separate species in an effort to make people understand each other. Rukia's beautiful singing voice was gone too, and Jimmy had liked it when she had sung, for her voice had the ability to make even this outer colony on the far reaches of the universe feel a little like home, even if her songs were from another world entirely. Izoivo, someone for whom diplomacy was everything; he had always felt that if you understood a culture, it's history, it's beliefs, if you truly made the effort to guilelessly connect to another species or group, you would be welcomed with open arms. Donna's more subtle brilliance too. Her talents lay in being able to take something that wasn't working, a language or an equation, and simply ask the right questions, which resulted in the entire situation being re-imagined, re-worked, until it was something more than it was before.

All brilliant in their own ways, all able to understand the things around them in a way the others couldn't.

And Kodos had thrown them all aside like they were trash.

There mere thought that Kodos somehow had the right, the _authority_ to do that, that he somehow believed that what he was doing was reasonable, made Jimmy see red. He flung back the covers, stalking around the room with fury boiling slow and hot in his stomach. He spotted the clothing he'd worn earlier, still shoved in the corner and absolutely stinking of blood, and Jimmy wanted nothing more than to burn it.

The desire welled up so thick and hot in his throat that Jimmy had scooped up the clothing and left his room before he had the time to really think things through. All he knew was that the clothing absolutely could not remain in his room. He retained enough presence of mind to slip through the halls silently, heading without fail towards the incinerator that was attached to the kitchen, the one that was generally used for spoiled food or for trash that wasn't bio-degradable or recyclable. The incinerator would be able to handle his clothing easily, and would even burn the ash away, until there was no trace that his clothing and the blood staining them had ever existed.

The kitchen was silent- well, the entire house was silent, but the kitchen seemed to be particularly so- and Jimmy padded silently across the floor, holding his hands as far out in front of him as he could in an effort to keep the clothes as far away as possible. He swung open the incinerator door, ignoring the blast of heat and shoving his clothing down the chute. He heard them hit the bottom with a satisfying hiss, and the heat flared a little more as fuel was added. There was a little swell of vindictive satisfaction in Jimmy's heart, as if somehow what he'd done would help him outwit Kodos. Jimmy stared at the metal grate for a long moment, staring without really seeing it.

Footsteps sounded out in the hallway.

* * *

TBC


	7. Chapter 6

Here's the next chapter!

* * *

**Chapter 7: For This Dance We'll Move With Each Other**

Jimmy was up and scrambling for a hiding place before he'd even realized what he was hearing, instincts getting him out of the way before his forebrain could mess things up. He hid himself in the pantry, and for a brief second he was nothing but grateful that the famine had cleared so much space, or he'd have been unable to hide in there. With baited breath he waited, hoping the sound of him getting into the pantry hadn't been loud enough to warrant inspection, wondering who the footsteps belonged to, praying that he wouldn't be discovered; no matter the circumstances, if he was found hiding in the pantry, he either looked like a shameless thief who was eating food as he pleased during a famine, or he looked like a dangerous weapon to be used against Kodos, if the governor knew the circumstances.

The footsteps, however, passed by the double doors leading into the kitchen without pausing, and Jimmy signed in relief.

With the utmost care, Jimmy extricated himself from the pantry and made his way over to the doors, opening one with as much care as he could muster. He peeked around the doorway, curiosity momentarily tamping down the overwhelming fear he'd felt only seconds ago.

It was Kodos, and from the glimpse of his face that Jimmy caught just as the governor turned the corner, the man was furious. Jimmy didn't know what possessed him to follow the dangerous man- and he _was_ dangerous, even if nothing could be proven yet- as he returned to his office. Jimmy kept well behind him, blending into the shadows in his dark pants and grey shirt, as if he'd known he would be sneaking around even more this evening.

"You're here," Jimmy heard Kodos say in a flat voice. "Good."

There was a shutting of the door; though the entire outside of the governor's house was covered from every angle from state of the art security, the inside was yet another show of Kodos's power. Almost every room in the entire building had some sort of antique, whether a vase from Ming Dynasty China, or an Andorian statue made from the shimmering purple stone they called dempa, or a crystal chandelier that used actual wax candles to light a room. It was the same with the doors and floors- such a simple thing, normally, but instead of the sliding automatic doors and plain flooring, Kodos had imported antique doors that actually used hinges, complete with doorknobs.

And while the antique doors were a lot more aesthetically pleasing, it was damn near impossible to really soundproof them.

Jimmy crept forward, hardly daring to breathe as he crouched near the doorframe, all his muscles tensed and coiled, ready to throw himself away from the door and down the hall before anyone could be the wiser. He stared blankly at the opposite wall, focusing on listening attentively to the conversation occurring in the room. From the sounds of things, he was listening to the tail end of the discussion.

"-fool!' Kodos was saying. "Tell your men to set the building on fire- find a good reason for it too; I can't believe you just left their bodies there! Anyone could wander along, knock on the door, figure out what happened, and raise the sort of fuss that I _really_ don't need to deal with right now, not when I'm still going over the results of those tests! I can't have them being alerted before the selection process has been completed."

_Selection process?_ Jimmy wondered.

"Yes, sir," the other person said, sounding obnoxiously respectful, fawning over Kodos, as if he deserved the attention. "Right away sir. I'll have my people get on it. Before I leave, sir, I was hoping I could ask a few questions."

"If it will get you back to work any faster I will gladly respond to any questions you have."

I just…" the man- for the voice seemed to deep too be that of a woman's- paused for a second. There was something dark and eager in his voice that rubbed against Jimmy the wrong way. "I was just curious, sir, why you had us kill them second. I mean, I know we'll have to cut down the population to make sure the best people survive, but wouldn't it be easier to round them all up at once? Instead, first it was the elderly and lame, then those goddamn geniuses, next probably the local idiots, it doesn't matter, so long as the people who have the necessary and worthy talents live, but wouldn't it be easier simply to handle it all at once? You could round them up and gas them- there are some noxious things down in the labs that are easy to make, or you could simply put them in the jail or something. I dunno."

Jimmy abruptly was left feeling cold and nauseous even as he stayed in his low crouch. The confirmation of what he'd suspected, they'd all suspected was going on came as a nearly physical blow. Nevertheless, there had been no way for Jimmy to confirm it, no way to actually lay the blame at Kodos's feet. It would be his word against Kodos's, and Jimmy suspected he knew how that would go. They would say he was a child, that he didn't understand what he was talking about, that surely he was mistaken. They were all terrified, and it was better to deal with the devil you knew; no one was stupid enough to believe that anyone but Kodos was truly in charge; hell, with martial law in place, the paltry little government that was in place on Tarsus IV was all but ineffective. Any outcry would be immediately and harshly silenced to allow Kodos his continued control. Instead of outcry, everyone was fighting to remain on his good side, hoping that by sucking up to him, they would gain enough of his favor to survive the coming storm.

Jimmy was so lost in his thoughts that he nearly missed it when Kodos began his response, deep voice filled with an ancient and terrible conviction. "I will weed out the weak, those who will drag the rest of us down, those who will result in the death of more worthy members of society. But I am no fool. I must be subtle, for there are bleeding hearts among my populace who would defy me, who would kill us all for some imagined idea of 'good'. I will not have it. I will save what is mine- after all, even a mutilated body is better than having no body at all, and if I must remove some of the liver to keep the heart, the lungs of my people going, I will do it gladly. I will do it a thousand times over. We don't have enough food for more than half the population. Therefore, half the population must be killed. The elderly first were a kindness. They lack the strength to keep healthy during famine. And the offworlders, that was a mercy too. You know how irrational mobs and rioters get- they would have gotten around to killing them eventually, because the blame is always laid at the feet of the 'other' in this universe. And that death would not have been kind. This way, I save the ones that may be of use, and kill the ones that are worthless."

Worthless.

Abby. Daniel. Rukia. Deshtom. Gim. Gam. Andrelinna. Nawat. Donna. Izoivo.

Worthless.

Worthless.

_Worthless._

Jimmy understood now what people meant when they talked about flying into blind rages, when they spoke of being filled to the brim with fury so fierce that it was uncontrollable, when they described how it would take over your thoughts, until nothing else existed. In that instant he could have been slapped, mocked, even _shot_, and he would not have responded, would not have even been aware of it happening.

He forced himself to breathe through the rage, forced himself not to cry out. It must not have worked, because he heard Kodos say sharply, "What was that?"

Jimmy's coiled muscles didn't betray him, however, and he was up and around the corner before he heard the scrape of a chair that indicated that someone was getting up from their seat in the office. He simply ran, blindly, trying to prevent himself from making a sound, refusing to allow so much as a heaving breath to indicate his position. He nearly slipped on the dark floor several times before he reached his room, and each time a sob nearly escaped from his chest.

He flung himself into the room, shuddering, and rushed to his bathroom, sliding across the floor in order to make it to the toilet before throwing up- or at least attempting to. He mostly just dry heaved, as there was nothing much in his stomach to throw up, but the bile tore at his throat. This time when he cried it was nearly silent, for no noise could fully encompass what he was feeling.

A short eternity later, Jimmy finally relaxed his death hold on the toilet, sagging back limply. He couldn't bear to stay with the taste of bile in his mouth for more than a few seconds, however, so he got up to rinse his mouth and sip some water, which soothed his throat.

_We've got to get out of here_, Jimmy thought to himself desperately, shoulders shaking as he braced himself against the sink. As before, he couldn't bear to face himself in the mirror. He wiped at his face too, removing sweat that was as much from fear as it was from his run back to his room. He didn't feel clean when he'd wiped it off his face, however, and he found himself taking his second shower of the day, feeling completely wrecked, as though he'd spent the better part of a week straight without sleep instead of just a single night. The hot water sluiced over him, washing away the sticky sweat that had gathered in the creases of his skin. He turned his face up to the spray, running his hands through his hair, wishing there was something that would let him leave the shower and sleep, if only for an hour or two.

He stumbled out, scowling as the clock reported that it was two in the morning. Ianto had spread himself across Jimmy's covers, arms and legs flung out and taking up a large portion of the bed. Jimmy sighed and pushed Ianto into a more reasonable shape, yanking the covers out from under his body. He crawled under them, Ianto snuffling a little as he adjusted to the warmth that Jimmy represented. Immediately Ianto clung to him like a limpet, and Jimmy couldn't find it in him to blame the boy. Hell, Jimmy rather wished that he had…that he had…

That he had his mom there. To give him a hug and kiss and to say that everything was going to be alright. He'd never believed her before, even as she comforted him after nightmares. His dad was reason enough not to believe her, and the one time he'd said as much he heard her crying in her room later- in their room, the room that should have been for husband and wife and was far too big for a widow.

Jimmy had never said it again, because no one wants to make their mom cry.

As much as he'd dismissed her at the time, however, Jimmy wished now that she was here.

Because maybe this time he'd believe her.

He thought he'd be unable to sleep, but the weariness was tugging at him now, pulling him into a sleep plagued with half memories that had been twisted out of shape, with anxiety and pain. Even though his mind was stressed, running in circles around the same ideas and worries, he somehow managed to rest, and when his alarm went off Jimmy groaned, feeling as though he'd gotten absolutely no sleep at all for as tired as he felt. He'd have almost been better off just staying up through the night if this was going to be the effect of attempting to sleep with the events of yesterday the focus of his mind.

Ianto stirred beside him, kicking Jimmy in the ribs as he changed position. Jimmy let out a yelp. He said aloud, "James T. Kirk, confirming wake-up call."

"Have a nice day!" the alarm said cheerfully in response, and Jimmy nearly pitched it against the wall in a fit of frustration. He managed to resist and crawled out of his bed, throwing on water clothes came to hand and not bothering to so much as comb his hair, though he did brush his teeth and splash water on his face in an effort to seem more awake. It didn't help the shadows under his eyes or the face that his face was too pale, his eyes to stormy to be considered normal. He rubbed at his face with a towel, already sick of the day, and knowing it could only get worse.

And it did, of course. Jimmy instructed Ianto to stay put first, warning him to hide if anyone entered the room, though Jimmy didn't think it would do much good, considering there wasn't exactly a surplus of places to hide, even if it was only Ianto's small frame. Ianto simply nodded, still looking too tired, too quiet, too wan, too…sad. Jimmy's mouth tightened as he surveyed the room. Ianto was still in the dirty clothes he'd been in yesterday, and Jimmy told him to throw something of his on, and to rinse the clothes if he could. Normally Jimmy would have just said to get rid of them, but he could hear the echo of Kodos's demand that they burn the place down. There was nothing else for Ianto to wear, because everything he'd brought with them would be long gone by now.

Then Jimmy had been forced to listen in stony silence as Kodos revealed that the program house had burnt down with everyone in it. Jimmy nearly decked the governor for his condolences, for daring to offer a listening ear if they needed it, but the hot fury of the last night had coiled into something altogether more dangerous: patience. Patience and the knowledge that when the time was right, Jimmy would strike the poisonous old snake when he least expected it, and would leave as much damage as he could, even if it meant his death. So Jimmy pretended to be in shock like he was expected to be. He could tell that Big J had warned the others of what had really happened, even if they didn't yet know the whole story- when the news was revealed, Memeki didn't say a single word about how she'd begged Jimmy to get the scroll her dapi had given her. Jimmy felt a pang go through his chest, a sense of profound loss flooding through him that he hadn't been able to do as she'd asked.

On top of that, they were expected to do their regular work, as if they could focus between the grim reality and the fact that people they'd known and cared for had been killed by the man who told them the news. The day wore on forever, until finally Ingrid sent Jimmy out, to prevent him from blowing either himself or someone else up.

By unspoken agreement, they all gathered in Jimmy's room, cramped though it was. They ate their dinners, meager as they were, in near silence, each person taking a little of their meal and giving it to Ianto, who still looked as though he was in shock from the previous day's events. Jimmy felt that way too, sometimes, burning hot and cold in equal measures.

When the meal was finished, but before anyone else had the chance to open their mouths, Jimmy told them all what he'd discovered when he'd gone to throw out his clothing last night. It was a stumbling, awkward tale, filled with moments where he wasn't sure what to say, how to describe what happen, because he was stuck between trying to be clinical, removed from the situation, yet simultaneously needing them to understand, to acknowledge the pain and suffering he'd experienced as a result.

"Jimmy," Big J finally breathed at the end, and the older boy got up and hugged Jimmy tight around the shoulders. Jimmy clutched at him as though he would disappear once Big J let go. "Oh Jimmy," Big J murmured, running his hand through Jimmy's hair as he had last night. Jimmy squeezed his eyes shut in an effort to stem the tears, but a few still trickled through.

"That's all well and good," Ebenezer finally growled, clenching and unclenching his hands rhythmically, "but that leaves us the question of what to do next."

And thus the conversation dissolved into chaos, each person attempting to put their own opinion forward. Big J only had to remind everyone once to keep their voices down- no one dared to speak loudly enough to catch the attention of Kodos or one of his guards. Instead, they hissed their remarks, using biting tones and rough words instead of shouts. Eventually, however, the evening wore into early morning, and Jimmy was nearly falling asleep on his feet. He'd contributed earlier in the evening, arguing as passionately as anyone else about his opinions (which were, Jimmy had to admit, largely unreasonable, since they mostly involved killing Kodos for what he'd done, and in an effort to prevent him from killing more people under his care) but he'd slipped towards silence, listening instead.

He was the youngest kid awake, Ianto, Memeki, Savik, Karrin and O'las having long since been sent back to their rooms to get what rest they could. Or rather, the others had been sent back to their rooms and Ianto was once more curled up on Jimmy's bed and dead to the world. As a result, the conversation had gotten even quieter in an effort not to disturb Ianto.

It was rapidly approaching dawn before they managed to agree on what to do, and the plan was elegant in its simplicity. Stealth would be their friend, and they would take advantage of the same thing that Jimmy had the previous day to get out to the program house- the fact that Kodos wasn't using the guards to keep his home secure, but instead had deployed them to the cities to keep the peace. As a result, Kodos's home was a ghost town, for even the servants left for the night to return to their residences.

It would be simple then, with proper planning, to leave Kodos's house in two days time, to slip out without warning and give themselves several hours before the man would notice the fact that they had disappeared; that everyone could agree on. They didn't dare wait any longer than a day or two before departing, however, because it would be difficult to try and keep what they knew a secret as well as keep the fact that Ianto was present in the governor's house under his nose, and they had no desire to do so for any longer than was absolutely necessary. The trouble came with their inability to agree on what to do after they had left. The suggestions varied from working against Kodos as some sort of free agents to hiding in the wilderness in an effort to avoid the people that Kodos would surely sent after them when he realized what they'd done.

It was Gretchen who finally suggested that they should track down Dr. Jameson, so as to warn him what Kodos was planning in the hopes that the populace would listen to him. She spoke slowly, sounding out the plan carefully.

"And then what? We'll just hope that he puts up with us?" Ebenezer demanded. "Sure, I bet he'll believe us if we tell him the truth of what happened, especially because Abby was…" Ebenezer swallowed, blinking a little too rapidly, then said, "Abby was his friend. He'll do whatever it takes to undermine Kodos's power if it means that he'll be saving lives in the process. But I'm not so sure that he'll be able to do anything about us. There's what, eleven of us? Where is he going to hide eleven fugitives, people who are dangerous because they know the truth of what's happening? How do you even know that he'll be willing to do it in the first place? He might just decide that we're too dangerous and turn us over to the guards. Then where will we be?"

"No worse off than we are already," Yana snapped back. "Gretchen is right. Dr. Jameson is our best odds to get the word out- no one is going to believe a couple of offworlders. Anything we say will sound more than half crazy, and traitorous to boot. If it comes from someone like him, a doctor that was out there during the riots, that understands what the people are going through, a lot more people will believe, and isn't that all that really matters? Besides, he went out of his way to make sure that Abby knew what was going on, and even made sure we got out of the program house and to Kodos's alright. I think he'll be able to point us in the right direction as far as what we should do next, since he knows this place a lot better than we do."

Ebenezer couldn't fault their argument any more than Big J or Roshaun could, and even Jimmy could see that the doctor was their best hope, the only one they really knew on this planet besides the scientists and the men and women who worked directly for Kodos, all of whom were too close to Kodos's fold to risk their inclusion. Gretchen and Yana spoke persuasively for a few more moments, trying to bring the others around to their point of view; slowly, one after another they were won over by the logic. They agreed that while the plan wasn't the _best_, per se, it was the only feasible one, the only way they could see to both get the news out and hide in plain sight until Kodos was- hopefully- dispatched by the very same people he was planning on killing in an effort to make the food last longer for the 'worthy' citizens.

It was nearly four in the morning before they all departed Jimmy's room, slipping back to their own in the pre-dawn light. Jimmy sat on his bed, exhausted and hoping against hope that he would be able to rest peacefully so he could actually function the following day. Again he was forced to push Ianto aside so as to reclaim some of the bed for himself, staring at the opposite wall with dull eyes that burned with the lack of sleep.

Like the previous night, weariness tugged at his bones enough that he was able to get some rest, but it was still plagued by nightmares, and twice he woke up gasping just before he or the people he was with were killed by Kodos in a dream. Again the alarm came far too early for Jimmy's taste, and he was groggy when he said aloud, "James T Kirk, confirming wake up call." He was groggy enough that it came out garbled, and Jimmy was forced to repeat it twice more, each time with increasing frustration, before the alarm finally shut off. Ianto didn't stir, and Jimmy greatly begrudged him the ability to sleep at all.

Two nights with less than four hours of sleep were not making Jimmy a happy person, but he managed to stumble through his morning routine without accidentally killing himself, which he counted as a bonus. Unlike the day before, however, when he existed in a constant haze of rage and sadness, today he was simply numb, existing in a different sort of haze, one that left him listless and unable to full concentrate on his work.

Jimmy ignored the looks of pity and sorrow he was treated to all day, to the murmured condolences for Abby and the others, as though that could make it all better, as if it was supposed to comfort him. Jimmy accepted them with a placidness that he knew was wrong; he knew he should be yelling at them to blame Kodos, not make awkward little apologies when they didn't know what else to say. They didn't burn in a fire, they were murdered, murdered in cold blood and without care.

Jimmy rubbed at his forehead, trying to fight the headache building in his temples, in part from what had happened the last few days, in part because he couldn't deal with another offer of sympathy, especially from Kodos, who had been positively simpering when he'd stopped by after the meager lunch. The haze cleared for those few moments when Kodos had clapped a hand on Jimmy's shoulder. Jimmy had been unable to keep himself from tensing under Kodos's grip, flinching back from the touch. He covered it with a weak smile, eyes flickering down.

"Sorry," he muttered. "You…startled me." Jimmy hunched his shoulders, rubbing at his face.

Kodos smiled thinly. "It's quite alright. I'm sorry for the pain you have endured. I assure you, I am working as best as I can to find the terrible perpetrators who killed my dear friend Abby and the other members of my program. I can't express how thankful I am that I was able to inadvertently rescue you. I hope you will look upon this as your home for the duration of your stay."

Even through the numb haze, Jimmy nearly punched him for that one. Though he didn't do anything, Kodos seemed to sense his intention, and the thin smile turned positively icy. To placate him, Jimmy attempted a false smile, but his muscles wouldn't work, wouldn't shape the careless grin that he'd worn so easily merely three days ago. Kodos left him alone then, thankfully, left him alone to stare blankly at the equations before him.

The following day passed much the same, with the same feeling of numbness in the wake of fire and fury. Jimmy went through the motions of doing his work, more preoccupied with hoping that Ianto wouldn't be discovered, that they wouldn't be caught as they tried to escape, that they would somehow survive the coming months despite the fact that winter was coming on top of the famine. He worried for the future, for his friends, for what Kodos was planning to do. It made him snap at the men and women he was working with though it wasn't their fault. He grunted apologies, and tried not to see the still-present pity in their eyes for his loss. He simply wanted to get out of Kodos's house, to stop working for him, to stop wondering if this was the minute where Kodos's guards would come bursting into the room and drag him and the others away in chains so they could be killed. The very thought left him jumpy for hours, especially as evening approached.

As they time that they had decided to leave came nearer and nearer, Jimmy began having second thoughts. He hadn't expected to, but suddenly there seemed to be a thousand and one things that could go wrong, a thousand and one things that could lead to their demise. He began pacing his room, stalking from one corner to the other, the most precious things of his life held in a bag over his shoulder, while Ianto watched him with eyes too weary to belong to so young a child. The Ianto before Abby's death had been shy and sweet, but now he was closed off, as though a part of him had died when Abby had.

Jimmy could sympathize, because he felt that way sometimes too.

He wanted to tell Ianto that it would be okay, but he had no way of knowing, no way to keep his promise. So instead Jimmy smiled weakly at Ianto and returned to his pacing, wondering when Big J would finally come to collect him. They were planning on leaving in stages, in groups of two or three, and Big J, Ianto and Jimmy would be the last group; they planned to meet at the outskirts of the city, but by leaving gradually they hoped their departure would be less noticeable than if a group of eleven attempted to make their way through Kodos's grounds and to the city on foot with naught but their personal belongings. Two or three people would also be more easily ignored by the sensors than an entire group, and Ebenezer and Roshaun had spent the previous night ensuring that nothing technological would realize- or report- their absence. Jimmy hoped belatedly that he hadn't set anything off, but considering the general lack of outcry from Kodos about the fact that he had been sneaking off the grounds at the same time that his men were attacking Abby and the others, Jimmy guessed that for some reason Kodos and his men either hadn't recently checked the tapes or had turned them off for the duration of the attack. Jimmy suspected it was the second, since the program house was on Kodos's grounds, and he wouldn't want any record of what he was doing to exist.

When the nearly silent knock on the door finally sounded, Jimmy practically leapt for it, opening the door as quickly as he could manage. Big J stood at the threshold, hand raised for another knock. He raised an eyebrow, face creasing a little in laughter. Jimmy flushed, but didn't respond, waving for Ianto to come. Like before, the halls were empty and silent, with not a soul in sight to catch them. Jimmy's heart pounded frantically the entire time, however, as he expected each shadow to hold a guard, each movement out of the corner of his eye to be a phaser about to be fire.

Despite Jimmy's worries, the task of escaping proved to be no harder than it had several nights previous, and Jimmy was strangely furious at Kodos's overconfidence, his belief that no one knew what he was up to, that no one would dare harm him even if all of his men had been sent out to control the population of Tarsus IV. They slipped out the last door, shutting it firmly behind him and it was only then that Jimmy's heart began to calm by slow degrees. They crept across the lawn, sticking to the shadows cast by the various bushes and trees that could be found everywhere. They generally avoided the path as they walked the eight miles in the cold of the night to the edges of the city. It took nearly two hours, bogged down as they were with their personal belongings, but there hadn't been so much as a hint that they should leave them. Until they were able- if they were able- to get off this planet, their personal items were all they had of home, all they had of the families and friends who loved them, all they had to remember that Tarsus IV and Kodos wasn't all there was to this universe.

The others were waiting for Jimmy, Big J and Ianto, and when they appeared over the edge of the hill, Jimmy could practically sense their relief. Jimmy smiled a little, feeling himself relax a little more as he saw the faces of the others, glad that they had made it thus far without harm. It was another minute or two before they were close enough that they could speak without worrying about drawing attention to themselves, however, so Jimmy kept his greeting to a brief wave, as did everyone else.

When they finally met up, it was as though they weren't sure how to continue. They stared at each other awkwardly, unwilling to blatantly address what had brought them this far. Ebenezer grunted, finally, breaking the strange tension between them all and held up a piece of paper. "I tracked down Dr. Jameson's home address on my PADD." he said aloud, and it gave them all something else to focus on.

"I know where that is," Gretchen announced, scrunching her face up in thought. "At least, I'm pretty sure I know where it is. When…" she licked her lips a little nervously, and she had to blink a couple of times before she was able to continue. "When I went with Rukia to do some shopping a couple of times, I'm pretty sure we passed this street."

"Can you take us there now?" Savik asked, ever the impatient one.

Karrin elbowed him, and Savik was on the verge of retaliating when he caught sight of the stern looks on Roshaun and Big J's faces especially. He settled for making a face at her and stepping away to prevent the air from being knocked out of him again.

Gretchen worried her lip for a moment, and then nodded. "I think I can. I can get us to the general area, at least."

Jimmy adjusted his pack before they set off following Gretchen into the city proper. It was an organized city, unlike New York or Boston back on Earth. It was more in keeping with San Francisco, which had been more carefully designed than its predecessors. To that end, the city was patterned more or less in the style of a grid, each street carefully labeled, even if the cars used the magnetic strip and GPS for Tarsus IV to orient itself; enough people walked around the city. Jimmy had never been able to think of it as a city, truly, since the population was not that much bigger than that of Riverside in Iowa, and nowhere near approaching the near billion people present in New York, or Vulcan's Shi'Kahr, or even Cardassia's Gemvar. It was, however, the closest thing they had to a city- nearly five thousand people lived here, the other three thousand or so spread across three other settlements.

It didn't take them as long as Jimmy thought it would to traverse the city and get to Dr. Jameson's house, even with the unexpected realization that there were guards posted all over the city, carefully keeping an eye on the citizens in an effort to keep order. There were only so many people that could stand watch and enforce martial law, since Kodos's guards only comprised about a tenth of the population, if that. There were entire streets that showed not a single sign of life, that were completely unwatched. As a result, though they were forced to take several detours and there were some terrifying moments where they were forced to take last minute cover and scatter, hiding themselves as best they could so as to avoid attracting attention, they were eventually successful in reaching their goal.

Dr. Jameson's house was a quiet affair, like most of the other homes in the area. It was a quiet two story building that harkened back to the older styles of design found on Earth. It wasn't made of wood, but of a special polycarbonate mimicry that made it all but indestructible. Nevertheless, the design wasn't unlike that of Jimmy's home in Iowa, complete with a wraparound porch that could have come straight out of the 18th or 19th centuries. It was a blue color, with large bay windows and a kind of placid warmth that welcomed you casually forward. Though the plague had destroyed much of the grains and vegetables, it hadn't touched the flowers and shrubbery, and even though most of them were dying in the fall chill, Jimmy was surprised to find how much he enjoyed seeing them.

The entire group, Gretchen, Ianto, Roshaun, Ebenezer, Savik, Karrin, O'las, Memeki, Yana, Big J and finally Jimmy traversed up the steps, crowding awkwardly on Dr. Jameson's porch, casting about warily for some sign that their presence had been noticed by a guard or a neighbor.

It was Big J who finally stepped forward, pushing past all his friends in order to get to the front, where he rang the doorbell for a few seconds before stepping back and waiting, like they all were, nerves raw and hoping that Dr. Jameson would come to the door and let them in.

Five minutes passed, a long five minutes that seemed to Jimmy more of a short eternity than anything else. He, like most of the others, fidgeted and shifted from foot to foot, unable to keep adrenaline from making his heart race and his breathing speed up.

Just as Big J was about to ring again, the door opened.

Dr. Jameson stood there, hair in disarray, wearing loose sweatpants and a t-shirt. He looked shocked to see them, and his gaze passed from face to face, picking up on the agony, the misery, the worry, the fear, the anger. All of it.

He sighed, looking more defeated in that moment than Jimmy had thought possible.

"Well, it looks like you had better come in."

* * *

TBC


End file.
